


Playing With Fire

by Sparklefists



Series: Arson Around [1]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Chapter 6 is mildly NSFW, M/M, Prideshipping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-29 14:42:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 37,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7688419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sparklefists/pseuds/Sparklefists
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yami keeps one step ahead of the police and two steps ahead of his tumultuous past, leaving a string of burning buildings in his wake. Seto Kaiba is the detective who needs to prove himself by catching him. But this case goes deeper than either of them realise and, as each becomes obsessed with the other, will the spark between them catch alight or burn them both out?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm very excited to start this story! I've been playing with the idea of a realistic setting for a prideshipping story for a while, and this AU has blossomed into a setting for a story I'm thrilled to share.
> 
> You can find me (and my YGO recaps and discussion) on Tumblr; I'm pharaohsparklefists

A crash and a billow of smoke and sparks, as the roof finally falls in and the flames completely engulf the building. Yami grins, satisfied in victory. This is a good vantage point; sitting on the edge of a gazebo, the centrepoint of a small park surrounded by blocky buildings, each standing stiffly separate from its neighbours - one of them now nothing more than a bonfire for Yami to admire. His grin quickly fades as he looks back down to the note in his hand, a hurried cluster of hieroglyphs.

 

 

Next month. They should have almost a year, but now it’s suddenly a matter of weeks. He crumples the paper up and tosses it cleanly over the park fence and into the fire.

 

He can hear the sirens approaching, too late to save the building. Yami congratulates himself on his timing as he climbs down, makes sure his hood covers his hair, and slips away, the first fire engine pulling up just as he vaults the gate to the park.

 

Within minutes, the remains of the building are surrounded by firefighters and a looser circle of police officers.

 

* * *

 

Domino City Police Department central headquarters, home of the Major Crimes Division, is a grand, architecturally-imposing old building, with fine decorative stonework and quite possibly the worst coffee in the city. That was why Seto Kaiba, newly-minted MCD Detective, had built his own coffee maker on his first day off in his new position, and installed it in his desk. That, in turn, was why he had inadvertently become friends with Detective Kujaku, who took him under her perfectly-manicured wing and gave him entirely unsolicited but irritatingly useful advice, in exchange for a decent cup of coffee every morning. His grudging friendship with Kujaku had automatically qualified him as an equally-grudging friend of her partner, Detective Ishtar, who at least shared Seto’s zero-tolerance policy towards small talk.

 

Unlike Mai.

 

“You don’t have to sit on my desk, Kujaku. I imagine your own chair even has the benefit of being more comfortable.” Seto’s tone is snappish, but Mai just laughs, taking another sip of coffee.

 

“But the company isn’t as good! Anyway, Kaiba, you don’t have to put up with me for long, Isis and I are going across town for a case as soon as she’s done.” Mai nods towards the Chief’s door as she speaks, Isis’s silhouette just visible through the frosted glass.

 

Seto only grunts in response, skimming his paperwork for his most recent case, so Mai continues, “Congrats on the double homicide, by the way. You wrapped it up pretty quickly.”

 

“Hm. It was a trivial case.”

 

“Don’t sell yourself short. Too many people around here will do that for you…” Mai’s tone is wry. “Although I suppose you’re less likely to be written off as just a pretty face and a good rack. Not that you don’t have a pretty face…” She winks.

 

Seto rolls his eyes. “Please. My intention wasn’t to dismiss my own abilities. I obviously closed it quicker than anyone else could have--” Mai huffs in mock-offense, but doesn’t interrupt. “--but I’ve been here a month, and half the division still thinks the mayor is the reason I was promoted.”

 

“Is ‘the mayor’ how you refer to him at family dinners?” Mai’s tone is teasing, but her expression is understanding.

 

Seto’s smile is icy. “You assume we speak at family dinners.” He sighs and snaps his folder shut. “Just because I don’t have a partner doesn’t mean I can’t work an actually challenging case.”

 

“I’m glad to hear that.”

 

Seto turns in his chair to see Isis approaching, files under her arms and what Seto thinks of as her ‘fortune-teller smile’ on her lips.

 

“Ishtar.”

 

“The Chief asked me to drop over the file for the next case you’ve been assigned, Kaiba.” Handing a file to Mai and a much thicker one to Seto. “And if you’re looking for a challenge, I doubt you’ll be disappointed. Chief has decided to reassign the Ghost Arsons to you.”

 

“Seriously?” Mai ignores her file in favour of leaning over to read Seto’s over his shoulder. “That case gets assigned every time there’s a new one, it’s been bouncing around the division for what, ten years? But only ever experienced fire scene investigators and senior detectives get it.”

 

Seto doesn’t reply, flicking through the file. Mai’s right, it’s almost ten years of arsons, beginning with a multiple-fatality case in the immigrant quarter and ending last night with an abandoned apartment block next to a park not far from DCPD HQ. Just under 20, he estimates, and a wide variety of targets, mostly warehouses and odd buildings. Eleven fatalities in all, of which nine were due to the first fire. The only commonality to the fires is a near-total lack of evidence, with some of these fires still only classed as “suspicious” as opposed to "arson".

 

“Much as Detective Kujaku and myself would like to stay and discuss such an interesting case, we do have our own to tackle. I wish you luck, Kaiba.”

 

“Yeah, I think even _you_ are going to need it, hotshot!”

 

* * *

 

Seto is in a dark mood when he arrives at the crime scene forty minutes later. A pair of detectives had deliberately let him overhear them speculating that he only got the case because the mayor was pulling strings, and another had practically demanded to join the case as Seto’s partner because “you’ve only been here a month, kid, it’s a waste of resources to let you try”, then called him a spoiled brat when he refused.

 

He’d decided visiting the crime scene asap was more important than studying the case file. Valuable evidence could be lost if it rained, and although the fire scene investigators would file a full report by the afternoon, Kaiba preferred to examine the scene himself.

 

He pulls up on the street facing the ex-building and gets out of his car to survey it. He can see trees and the top of an ornate gazebo in the little park behind, a view that would have been blocked from street level yesterday by the stocky little apartment block. There’s police tape cordoning the plot off, but he’s the only person here. Good.

 

Twenty minutes later, he’s almost sorry there’s no one around to vent his anger on. The collapse took any chance of figuring out if doors and windows were open or closed out with it. The origin point of the fire seems to be impossible to determine. He can’t even tell if an accelerant was used or not. Kaiba isn’t a fire scene specialist but he’s observant and he knows and understands the physics behind a building fire; he’s seen his share of fires since joining the force and he’s never struggled like this to figure out even the basics of the event. He takes a deep breath and makes a heroic effort not to kick over a burned-out rubbish bin.

 

* * *

 

Yami takes a drag on his skinny cigarette and leans on the pillar of the gazebo, shifting to get a better view of the cop. He likes to keep a close eye on his crime scenes; he’s confident enough in his ability to keep hidden and evade the police that he can drop by a few times and keep an eye on the investigation. About a third of the time the cops don’t figure out the gift he’s left them, but he was really hoping this wouldn’t be one of those times. He’s running out of chances…

 

He’s distracted by the sight of the cop as he turns around. He’s young, and tall, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist like a swimmer. His brown hair is rather severely neat, and even from halfway across the park, Yami can tell his sharp features are handsome.

 

He weighs his options. The cop’s body language is angry, and even if he’s some kind of prodigy, he’s clearly too young to be a senior detective. Did the cops send a single junior detective to Yami’s crime scene? Are they even taking this seriously? If Yami slips away now, the fire might not even be officially classed as an arson, might not be investigated thoroughly. He drops his cigarette and grinds it out under his heel, irritated. That leaves his other option; engage with the cop. He’s never done something so risky, but he’s heading into the endgame. He doesn’t have the luxury anymore of simply sitting back and hoping they figure it out and solve his problem for him.

 

Tossing his cigarette butt into a bin as he goes, he approaches the fence and leans against it; it’s taller than him, thin metal bars, so he braces his forearms against it and watches the cop…

 

Who immediately turns around and sees him.

 

Yami’s heart is racing as the detective surveys him, his cool blue eyes taking in Yami’s leather trousers and oversize hoodie … and then fixing on Yami’s face, his gaze intense. He’s just as young as Yami had guessed, not more than a few years older than Yami himself.

 

“You! I want to ask you a few questions,” the cop barks, coming straight towards Yami, right to the fence, towering over him through the bars.

 

Yami smirks up at him from behind the bars, ignoring the pounding in his ears and the cold in his stomach. “Can I help you, officer?”

 

“What are you doing here?” His stern, unfriendly expression and his high cheekbones make him look haughty, arrogant, and his tone is harsh and demanding. Yami idly wonders if he has any friends.

 

“It’s a park, officer.” He keeps his voice smooth and calm, knowing it’s a terrible idea to bait him but unable to resist the temptation.

 

The cop’s jaw tightens. “Do you know anything about the fire?” Tossing his head back at the burnt out shell of the building.

 

Yami hesitates, keeping his eyes wide, knowing it makes him look younger, innocent.

 

“If you know something, you better tell me.” The detective shifts closer, looming over Yami.

 

“I can’t tell you anything about the fire, but I might know something about the building you should know…” Yami watches the cop carefully. He’s sure his wariness is evident even through his cocky demeanor.

 

“Tell me!”

 

Yami grins, pushing back off the fence and tossing his head to the stone tables and chairs under a row of trees. “I was about to play a game of chess, but it’s more fun with an opponent. Beat me, and I’ll tell you everything.”

 

“Listen, brat--” The detective glowers, those icy blue eyes gleaming with anger.

 

“Unless you don’t think you can win?”

 

Yami can see the conflict play out on the man’s face. It’s such a childish challenge, he should obviously refuse, he’s on the job ... but Yami can tell the detective wants nothing more than to play and win.

 

“Of course I can win,” he growls.

 

“Then let’s play a game.” Yami’s eyes sparkle and he turns and walks away.

 

* * *

 

Seto takes a deep breath when the man - barely more than a kid, really - turns away, irritated with himself for having let him get to him. This is ridiculous, he’s a detective in one of the most elite divisions on the force, and actively working a case; he shouldn’t be playing chess in a park with a short-ass punk with an attitude. But he finds himself walking to the gate and entering the park, following his potential witness to the chess tables.

 

He usually catalogues the appearance of any potential suspects or witnesses, but he knows he won’t forget this person even if he doesn’t jot any notes. The young man has dark skin, almost as dark as Detective Ishtar’s. His eyes are bright, a blueish colour that’s closer to violet, and framed with eyeliner. His hair is easily his most notable feature; thick and afro-textured, it frames his delicate face like a sunburst, deep black at the roots, lightening to a rich, reddish colour at the tips, with scattered individual hairs gleaming almost gold. His mouth is small but his lips are full…

 

Seto’s eyes snap back up. Lips are not an appropriate focus for his attention. He has to beat this arrogant brat at his game and find out everything he knows. He’s not worried about the game taking long; he’s been a competitively-ranked chess player since he was a child.

 

“Tell me your name.” Seto sits opposite the man, arms folded, watching him set out their pieces.

 

“I’m called Yugi,” he says with a smile that’s slightly too cocky to be charming. His rich voice bears the hint of an accent that Seto can’t quite place. He would guess Arabic as a first language.

 

“You can be white, I think it suits you better,” Yugi continues.

 

“Hm. Fine.” Seto doesn’t want to admit that he always chooses white for himself. “Tell me what you know.”

 

Yugi sets down the last piece and leans back, gesturing for Seto to make his opening move.

 

“I told you, I’ll tell you everything if you beat me.”

 

Seto smirks, moving a pawn. “Which I will. And I’m a busy man, so how about you save us both the time and just tell me while we’re playing?”

 

Yugi makes his own move and grins back at him. “Are you an arson specialist, officer?”

 

“None of your business,” Seto snaps, immediately making his next move. Yugi immediately makes his. Seto’s finding his skill hard to gauge; he’s making each move as fast as Seto is, but it’s an unconventional strategy. He’s either very good, or bluffing. Seto isn’t about to go easy on him, but an immigrant youth in a baggy hoodie, hanging around a park in the mid-morning, seems more likely to be bluffing than a chess genius.

 

They each make their next ten turns in silence and Seto is forced to re-evaluate his assumption. He should have won by now if the brat was bluffing, but he’s sitting there, that cocky little smirk on his distracting lips, and Seto’s forced to admit - at least mentally - that he’s a skilled player.

 

“I wasn’t surprised, actually,” Yugi says conversationally, just as Seto’s trying to decide which tactic will be most successful against his opponent’s unconventional, slippery style.

 

“What.”

 

“I wasn’t surprised that building burned down. There was always something weird about it, since I’ve been coming here.” His tone is light and casual, then dips into something almost dramatic as he moves his knight. “Check, officer.”

 

Seto holds back a growl. “How long is that?” Capturing Yugi’s knight with extreme prejudice.

 

Yugi shrugs, tapping his bishop twice against the board before moving it. “Months? I like the chess sets here.”

 

“Go on.” He makes an effort to keep his voice calm. He will win, he’s Seto Kaiba, he can count the number of chess matches he’s lost on one hand. “What was weird about the building?”

 

“Check.” A grin. “You’d see people coming in and out, men, but only at night, and the lights were never on. Just seemed a bit odd. I avoided getting too close.”

 

It’s difficult to give both the chess game and the conversation the attention that Seto feels they deserve. He’s not about to lose a chess game to some arrogant, jumped-up kid. But he’s slipped up and started offering Seto the information that he said he’d only provide if Seto won, and he grudgingly has to admit that solving the case is more important than the chess game.

 

“Ever get a good look at any of the men?” He practically slams his queen into place. “Check.”

 

Yugi pauses, looking over at the burnt-out building. “It was usually dark. But there was one man I got a good look at, who I think might have been in charge over there. Tall, with grey hair and a narrow beard, a bit darker than you maybe.”

 

Seto follows his gaze, making a mental note. The lights were never on…

 

“Checkmate.”

 

Seto’s attention snaps back to the board, replaying their last moves, shock and rage rising in him. And he suddenly realises Yugi has stood up and is moving away, already past Seto’s arm’s reach, to the gate opposite the one Seto entered through.

 

“Wait!”

 

“Good game.” Yugi gives him a cheery wave, his attitude casual but he’s moving surprisingly fast. “And to tell the truth, I told you everything I was going to tell you anyway. Pretty good prize for second place.”

 

Seto’s on his feet and starting after him, but Yugi turns and vaults the gate, slipping between two buildings and vanishing from sight, and Seto curses and turns back, staring at their chess game.

 

For a brief moment, he thinks he’d throw away the case just for a chance at a rematch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note in first section:
> 
> Court date moved up; next month. Probably bribe. He thinks he’ll win. Probably bribe! We stand with you. Can you prove who you are? Will you? If not, everything is his. Miss you! [hieroglyph of owl]


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seto tries to investigate the arson, and ends up investigating his witness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you were wondering, I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!

 

In the car on the way back to the DCPD headquarters, Seto tries very hard to think about everything Yugi told him, without thinking about Yugi himself. 

 

He had inspected the remains of the building again, after Yugi left. Seto had suspected that the reason Yugi had reported not seeing any lights on was because the building had a basement, and he had been right; he’d found a trapdoor under the rubble. The heat had fused the door closed, so it would be a few hours before he could investigate it properly. He intended to use that time to follow up with the building’s owners. 

 

Seto would be more pleased about his lead if he hadn’t lost the chess game. 

 

He was determined to convince himself it was the correct decision to play, since it put the potential witness at ease enough to get the information Seto needed from him. 

 

But he hadn’t expected to  _ lose _ . 

 

He had underestimated the punk; if they played again he’s sure he would win. If he sees him again, he’ll suggest a rematch. In case Yugi has any more information about the men he saw using the building, he tells himself. 

 

For now, he has to interview the building’s owner, find out who was occupying or using the building, review the report from the fire scene investigation unit, and find any potential leads on people who may have had a motive against either the owner or the occupants. He’ll stay late at his desk tonight; it’s a good excuse to stay until everyone else has left. Once they’re gone, he’ll have the time and privacy for some work on his extra-curricular investigation too.

 

The first step - interviewing the owner of the building - is typically the simplest, but an hour and a half, and a half dozen infuriatingly unproductive phone calls later, Seto has to admit he has no goddamn idea who actually  _ owns  _ the building. The person interviewed by the on-scene detectives was a representative of a consortium of lawyers, employed by a company which is a subsidiary of a corporate conglomerate, owning - and representing owners of - vast swathes of Domino City property holdings. 

 

He slams the phone down on yet another fruitless call to some senior vice secretary with a growl.

 

“Temper, temper!”

 

Seto huffs and turns in his chair to face Mai. “What do you want, Kujaku.”

 

She tuts, and tosses a folder on his desk. “I thought  _ you  _ would want the report from the FSI unit on your Ghost Arson … but I’m not sure you should read it if you’re already in a strop.”

 

“I’m not in a strop,” Seto snaps, knowing as he does that he sounds exactly like he’s in a strop, which just makes him more annoyed. He snatches up the folder and starts to skim through it. “And you’re not supposed to be reading other people’s cases.”

 

“C’mon, I’m a detective, we’re pretty much wired for curiosity.”

 

“You’re a police officer, you should be wired to follow rules, uphold the law, all that --  _ what _ !”

 

Mai hisses sympathetically. “I know.”

 

“How could they class it as accidental? It clearly fits the M.O.! Almost all of these--” He stabs the case file with a finger. “--are abandoned or little-used empty buildings administered by consortiums, targeted overnight, with no obvious accelerant traces! Which is exactly what this--” He shakes the FSI report “--is.”

 

“You’re probably going to have to argue that with the Chief, Kaiba. He’s not going to want you wasting time on a case that isn’t going anywhere.”

 

Seto stands abruptly. “I’m going to investigate the basement. There’s no way I’m giving up.”

 

Mai nods, heading over towards her own desk and taking out her phone. “Ishtar and I will come with you. No arguments.”

 

* * *

 

Back at the crime scene, Seto’s glad he didn’t argue. Detective Ishtar coordinates the firefighters on the scene to prise open the trapdoor and Kujaku fends off a nosy neighbour, leaving Seto free to scope the ruins again, looking for any clue, any hint of a lead. The only remotely interesting thing he finds is a tiny scrap of burnt paper with a pictogram of a bird on it. 

 

“Kaiba. We’re ready. You’re lead on this.” If there’s a hint of chiding in Ishtar’s tone - that she’s dealing with logistics while Seto wanders around poking at the rubble - Seto elects to ignore it.

 

“Good.” 

 

Two of the firefighters precede him down the stairs into the gaping dark, their eyes on the roof, the beams of their flashlights on the stairs. Seto’s eyes and flashlight scanning the area.

 

They find it in the back room; tables, shipping boxes, bags of brown flour, incongruously expensive digital weighing scales … and on the floor by the door, picked out by Seto’s flashlight, a vial of brown powder he’d bet his life isn’t flour. At least, not purely flour. 

 

“Ishtar!” She’s right behind him as he picks it up in a gloved hand. “Gang activity in this area?”

 

“Not this far east, I hadn’t thought,” she says, leaning in to take a closer look, frowning. “And not heroin. As the Chief keeps reminding us, there’s been a growing heroin problem in the immigrant quarter. But so far, we can’t trace it to any of the active gangs.”

 

Mai whistles, knife in one hand and a compact, hefty package in the other, one of the boxes cut open behind her. “Doesn’t look like they managed to shift the stash before the fire.”

 

“I’m surprised they didn’t come back for it. We left the place unguarded overnight,” Ishizu muses as she joins Mai, who has dropped the package on a table and jabbed it with her knife. “Don’t verify by taste,  _ please _ , Detective Kujaku.”

 

Seto shakes his head. “The trapdoor was covered, they probably assumed the floor had fallen through. Or that we knew and were staking the place out. They’ve lost this much--” He gestures to the boxes. “--which will be the end of them if they’re a small operation, but this doesn’t smell like a small operation to me. They  _ chose  _ to cut their losses.”

* * *

 

“I’m going to cut my losses, my friend!”

 

Yami laughs and spins a dice playfully on the table. “That better not mean you’re going home, Otogi.”

 

“Nah, I’m going to get a beer and then watch you fleece those guys,” Otogi says, grinning, nodding to a group in another corner of the bar, playing poker. Nice watches, neat suits, businessmen out to blow off some steam. Good targets, Yami thinks. 

 

Yami smirks back and stands, slipping the dice into his pocket. “Then mine’s a whiskey, neat, and I’ll get the next round with my winnings.”

 

That was part of the strategy. A measure of whiskey is half the alcohol content of a pint of beer, but ordering neat spirits makes him seem like he’s drinking hard. Makes people underestimate him, assume he’s more drunk than he is. He waits until he has his drink in hand before he approaches the table, and makes sure his voice is louder and less precise than usual as he asks to be dealt in.

 

The businessmen see an easy target, then watch their money drain into the pockets of an apparently over-confident and over-inebriated teenager.

 

That’s another part of the strategy. Yami’s driver’s licence lists him as 25 years old. People tend to read him as 17 or 18. Neither is accurate and he uses both to his advantage. Tipping his voice higher or lower, widening or narrowing his eyes, assuming a powerful or diminished stance; he knows how to present himself as anywhere between 15 and 30.

 

* * *

 

“I’m not sure, somewhere between 15 and fucking 30,” Seto snaps.

 

Mai raises her hands. “Alright, alright. Well, whatever age he is, this Yugi person gave you a good tip-off.”

 

Seto nods and turns back to the files on his desk; the fire scene investigator photos spread out, the “Ghost Arsons” file open, his own notes regimented across four pages.

 

Mai checks her watches and glances over at Isis. “I’m going to head off, Kaiba. Try not to stay up all night. Even if there’s drugs and a gang involved, even if it’s an arson, this case isn’t going to change your life. Get some sleep.”

 

Seto nods again, circling a burn pattern on one of the photos.

 

Mai sighs, and a few minutes later, Seto hears the door close behind her and Ishtar. He’s the last one here. The more you have to prove, the later you stay, as a rule, And he’s absolutely determined to prove that this is a complex and difficult case, and furthermore, that he can solve it. The FSI might have decided that the fire was accidental, but Seto is sure this was an arson, and that it was committed by the same person as all the other arsons in the so-called Ghost Arsons file. And he’s going to be the person to catch them. 

 

He makes another attempt to follow the legal trail back to the real owner of the building, but it’s impossible. By design, he’s sure.

 

Detective Ishtar specialises in gang activity and he trawls through her notes on all of the gangs that could be dealing heroin, but nothing matches up. She was right, none of the known gangs operate in that area; not many of them deal in heroin at all, and the one that does is miles to the north and seems to favour white powder, not the cinnamon-brown they found in the burnt-out building. 

 

He pores over the photos, flicking back through every photo in the Ghost Arson file. Half of the fires in the file are as ambiguous as this one.

 

And he keeps thinking about Yugi. 

 

He should have asked him more questions; if not about the fire or the building, then about himself. He can picture him so clearly; gleaming eyes, full lips, dark skin and wild hair. Because he’s trained himself to remember faces, he tells himself. Because he might be important. Important to the case, of course. 

 

He should have won that chess game and demanded the brat tell him everything he knew.

 

He shakes his head. Yugi probably didn’t know anything else; he said so himself. 

 

Seto buries himself back in the older cases, since the most recent one is offering him nothing. They’re all so similar, with a few notable exceptions. Three involving fatalities. Three resulting in drugs found at the scene of the crime, not including the most recent. Two with obvious accelerant traces. One with an arrest at the scene.

 

He frowns and draws himself another cup of coffee. 

 

Three years ago, a house burned. Firefighters rescued a man; he’d been frantically trying to quell the fire alone. A neighbour had called the fire brigade. Police arrived. The house was a stash; boxes of pills and an attic converted into a grow-house for weed. The man was arrested in the ambulance. Although the fire seemed accidental, that man repeatedly insisted in interrogation that the fire had been deliberately set, and it ended up filed with the Ghost Arsons.

 

It takes a while, but Seto finds the full case notes, including the interview transcripts, and brings them from the back room to his desk, where another cup of coffee is waiting for another hour's reading.

 

The man had been convicted of possession with intent to sell. But he was the only person, as far as Seto can tell, to have ever offered a candidate for the mysterious arsonist; a teenager he played a game of cards against. 

 

DCPD hadn’t been able to substantiate the claims and, since he’d lied about, among other things, where he’d got the drugs, what he intended to do with the drugs, who he’d sold the drugs to, and his own name, they hadn’t taken his description of the card-playing teenager seriously.

  
  


**Transcript 10:17pm**

_ Okay, yeah, I cheated. He figured it out and he was fucking furious, said he’d get me back, see? Yeah, he was just a kid. Short and skinny, dark skin. Fucking weird hair, man, like, all burst out of his head, blackish red and gold. Really intense eyes. Seemed a kid but he had a pretty deep voice. And he still won the damn card game too, even though I stacked the deck. _

  
  


Seto freezes.

 

He reads it again.

 

He never reads things more than once.

 

He reads it a third time.

 

Yugi.

 

There’s no mistaking that description; there couldn’t possibly be two young men in the city with such “fucking weird hair”. Slender, with rich dark skin ... and those eyes, gleaming with intensity… 

 

And the chances were slim, in a city this size, that the same person had a motive against the owner of one building and habitually frequented the park right beside another, on practically the other side of the city. Maybe the drug dealers in the apartment block had annoyed him in some way too? If he was playing cards against one dealer, he might be involved with a drug gang, or at least frequent the kind of establishments drug dealers favour.

 

Seto shakes his head and tosses the file down on the desk, grabbing his laptop. 

 

It doesn’t take him long, comparatively. The kid had seemed like a college student to Seto; young, smart and cocky, casually dressed, free to play chess in a park at 10 am on a weekday. Domino City University is by far the largest third-level institution and the campus is centrally located. “Yugi” isn’t a common first name.

 

Seto smirks when he finds him. He looks younger in his official college photo - rounder face, rounder eyes - it was probably taken when he was a freshman. Maybe he’s been enrolled more than a few years. He’s obviously not a model student, if he spends his days in the park and his nights playing cards against drug dealers. 

 

His first day on the case and he already has a solid suspect. He sits back, stretching, satisfied. 

 

Seto’s not sure if he was assigned this case because the Chief wants or expects him to fail, or because the Chief figures he has nothing to lose, but he’s going to solve the damn thing and prove that he didn’t land this promotion because of dear old dad.

 

Gozaburo.

 

Shit.

 

He glances at the clock. It’s well into the small hours of the morning and he’s back on duty in a sickeningly short amount of time. He’ll have to leave now if he wants to shower, change and have any hope of a couple of hours in bed. He’s not sure he does, but he did promise Mokuba that he wouldn’t pull all-nighters anymore unless it was a life-or-death issue. So no time left to work on his side investigation.

 

Glaring at the clock, Seto stands, quickly clearing his desk and grabbing his coat. 

 

It doesn’t matter. He has time. Solving this case is another step towards building a reputation independent of Mayor Kaiba. Being a respected police detective in his own right will be almost as important as the evidence he collects, when it comes to the day he can finally arrest his adoptive father.

 

First things first. 

 

Tomorrow, he’ll pay a visit to Yugi Mutou, and this time, he’s going to win.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was difficult for me to keep Seto thinking of Yami as "Yugi", but I thought it was a fun nod to the canonical situation! Fun nods to canon are my jam in fic.
> 
> I'm on Tumblr as pharaohsparklefists, recapping Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters. 
> 
> I'm on Patreon at www.patreon.com/pharaohsparklefists and patrons can get early access to beta versions of this fic, among other things!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Yami faces a life-changing decision, Seto tracks down "Yugi Mutou" ... and finds who he's looking for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So… I’m just going to ask you all to go along with the surname thing, okay? Even if it doesn’t make the most amount of sense. You’ll know it when you get to it. I'm aware it doesn't actually constitute a real Japanese surname.
> 
> Oh, and I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!

Yami stares, unseeing, across the city, narrow cigarette dangling from his narrow fingers. This is one of his favourite rooftops, with a good view across the city on one side and a perfect view across the bay on the other. He perches on the wall, nothing below his feet but a long way to the ground, completely secure in his ability to balance.

 

He cannot lose this game he’s playing. The police are moving too slowly, so it’s time to push. He no longer has time for his original plan; to have his former family exposed and arrested. It’s time to take more drastic action, to simply … set a fire and let them burn.

 

And he has a month to do it.

 

Unless.

 

There are worse things than being declared legally dead. It’s not like there’s any chance of reclaiming his old life. He could bide his time…

 

Or he could leave the city. Leave all this behind. Forget his past, become a new man elsewhere.

 

But then his inheritance would be released to the man he has vowed to destroy. And it’s not his inheritance alone.

 

No, it’s better to move fast, decisively. There’s a chance they know he’s coming; pushing up the timeline could easily be a trap meant to lure him from hiding, if his opponent _does_ know that he survived. But he isn’t going to sit around and wait. If it’s a trap, he’ll escape it. If it’s simply haste born of greed, he’ll ruin him.

 

He sighs and takes a long drag on his cigarette, then tosses the stub out over the edge, watching the sparks tumble to nothing.

 

This isn’t his decision alone.

 

* * *

 

Seto pulls up in front of the Kame Game shop in the late afternoon and surveys the establishment. It’s the kind of place he would bring Mokuba to when they were younger. When they would ditch school to get a few hours together away from everything; first the orphanage and then the mansion. In retrospect, he’s sure half the teachers knew and were covering for them.

 

He frowns, and gets out of the car, determinedly running through his strategy, as if he hasn’t questioned hundreds of potential suspects before. As if he wasn’t clenching his fist around the guilt of not having seen Mokuba in days. As if he wasn’t picturing this particular suspect’s face far too vividly in his mind’s eye.

 

Open firm, but polite. Confirm name and habitual residence. Start asking more questions about the fire. Be alert for any changes in demeanor, any signals of evasion or guilt. If witness evades questions or behaves in a suspicious manner, take to HQ for further questioning. Arrest if necessary.

 

Kaiba is confident that he can make an arrest stick, even though all he has at the moment is supposition and circumstantial evidence.

 

He can outplay Yugi Mutou.

 

Kaiba strides into the shop and smirks when he sees him; short, dark skin, and that unmistakable hair, currently tied back in a puff. He’s behind the counter, reaching up to put something on a shelf, but he turns at the jingle of the bell.

 

“Hi, welc -- oh, good morning, officer. Can I help you?”

 

Seto’s already halfway across the shop floor, the door swinging closed behind him, his smirk replaced with a frown. Something’s different about him, something he can’t place. His voice is higher than Seto remembers, but not so different it couldn’t just be his “customer service” tone. His eyes look a little bigger. Do they?

 

They do now, he’s staring.

 

“Yugi Mutou?” Seto snaps.

 

“Yes…? Is something wrong, officer?” He looks worried now, but not guilty. That intensity isn’t there, he seems younger, maybe, or just more … innocent?

 

Yugi continues, “Is everyone okay?” He’s come out from behind the counter.

 

Seto refocuses on Yugi. “Who?”

 

“I don’t know? Sometimes police officers come to give you bad news?”

 

Seto frowns at him, Yugi stares back. This isn’t the same man he spoke with, played chess against, _lost_ to. He looks almost identical; Seto can’t pick out any physical differences he could stand behind. But he’s not the same, he’s not intense, not poised, not charismatic ... he’s not … not _attractive_.

 

Seto is violently thrown off his careening train of thought.

 

Yugi actually takes a step back and Seto realises his own eyes have widened, his fists are clenched, and he’s silently _glaring_ at a citizen. The worry on Yugi’s face is tinged towards fear and concern now.

 

Seto forces himself to take a deep breath.

 

Then he forces himself to completely shut down that entire chain of comparisons and associations.

 

His voice is calm and professional, if a touch clipped, when he speaks.

 

“No, no bad news. A man matching your description was placed at the scene of a crime, Mr Mutou. I have to ask you a few questions.”

 

“Oh, of course.” Yugi’s eyes somehow seem to get even bigger. Seto’s absolutely sure this isn’t the same person, but he can’t exactly write that on the report.

 

He takes out his notebook, and asks crisply, “You are Yugi Mutou and this, the Kame Game shop, is your habitual residence?”

 

Yugi nods.

 

“Can you account for your whereabouts at 10 am yesterday morning, Mr Mutou?”

 

Yugi hesitates, but it doesn’t appear to be evasive, it seems more like he’s trying to remember. “... Yes, officer, I was in a class at 10 yesterday, at Domino City University. Advanced Probability. My attendance should be noted, if you call the Mathematics department?”

 

Seto takes a note. He’ll call them, but only for the sake of the paperwork. He knows this isn’t the chess player.

 

“And the previous night? Midnight?”

 

“I was here. I worked in the shop until closing, then stayed in.” He gestures to the security camera vaguely. “You can check, if you like. We live upstairs.”

 

“We?” It comes out quicker and harsher than Seto intends and Yugi’s eyebrows rise again.

 

“Myself and my Grandpa, officer.”

 

Seto almost curses. No identical twin. He’s opening his mouth to ask when Yugi continues.

 

“You really saw someone who looks like me? There aren’t many people in the city with hair like mine! Do I have a twin?” His tone has brightened with apparently genuine curiosity and he laughs lightly.

 

“I was hoping you might know, if you did.” Seto’s tone subdues Yugi’s laugh.

 

“I’m sorry I can’t be of more help, officer,” Yugi says politely, back to his slightly-anxious customer service tone.

 

* * *

 

Yami’s steps don’t falter when he turns the corner and sees a police cruiser outside the game shop, even as he feels a punch of ice cold to his stomach. Don’t speed up, don’t slow down, don’t turn around ... don’t give them a reason to think he’s anything other than a law-abiding kid. Keep walking, turn at the next corner.

 

His steps don’t falter when the hot, uptight cop from the park steps out of the shop. He has time, he’s almost at a corner, he just needs the cop not to look up, and a cop will always look up if someone turns and runs.

 

The cop looks up, directly at him. Yami sees his eyes widen - recognition, confusion - and then narrow - determination, anger. He freezes.

 

“You!”

 

Yami doesn’t wait to hear any more; he turns and runs, knowing as he does that the damn cop has much longer legs than he does. He ducks down an alleyway, around a corner, he’s fast but the cop is faster, he dodges a railing, jumps down a step, if he can get around the next corner -- a strong hand grabs his arm and he finds himself shoved up against the wall.

 

“I’ve got you now, punk.” The officer’s voice is a growl and Yami takes some satisfaction in noting that his breath is coming as heavily as Yami’s is after the chase. He’s almost a full head taller than Yami is, and strong; Yami tries to twist out of his grip but the cop doesn’t give him an inch, roughly turning Yami to face the wall. He only releases Yami’s wrist when he has a firm grip on the back of Yami’s neck, keeping his cheek pressed to the brick.  “Hands on the wall.”

 

Yami hesitates, heart pounding and breath ragged… He can’t outrun this man and he can’t beat him in a straightforward physical fight. He’s got no choice but to obey, until he can escape.

 

“Problem, officer?” He keeps his voice light, young, as he complies, raising his hands to the wall either side of his head. He just needs a moment of distraction...

 

The cop snorts derisively, easing his grip on Yami’s neck but not letting go, to Yami’s disappointment. “What’s your name? Your _real_ name.”

 

Yami wets his lips. “Am I obliged to identify myself to you, officer?”

 

“I’m perfectly happy doing this the hard way…”

 

A cold cuff snaps into place around Yami’s wrist and he bites back a groan, dropping his forehead against the wall. The cop pulls Yami’s arms down and Yami is powerless to do anything but clench his fists as his wrists are cuffed behind him.

 

“Now let’s see…” There’s a distinct note of smugness in the officer’s tone as he starts to pat Yami down.

 

Yami feels his cheeks start to redden as the hot cop’s hands reach his waist, patting down his thighs and ass … long fingers dipping into the tight pockets of his leather trousers.

 

He seizes on the idea that the cop might be having the same reaction he is.

 

“I didn’t realise you were so eager for a … _rematch_ , officer…” Yami smirks over his shoulder, and is rewarded by the hint of a blush across the cop’s sharp cheekbones. “You know, when I imagined you pinning me to a wall, it wasn’t exactly like this…”

 

“Shut up!” There’s a note of something approaching panic in the cop’s bark.

 

“I thought you wanted me to tell you my name…?”

 

The cop sneers, tugging Yami’s wallet from his pocket and flipping it open, keeping one hand on Yami’s shoulder. “You missed your chance to comply … Yami Namonaki.” He raises an eyebrow. “Namonaki? Really. You expect me to believe your surname is _nameless_?”

 

Yami shrugs, feeling faintly embarrassed and letting it show. “Look, it’s not like people get to choose their own surnames.” He’s surprised when the officer’s hand tenses slightly at that, but he continues. “I imagine at some point someone in my family cast off their name and went with an admittedly on-the-nose replacement.”

 

He has to concentrate not to hold his breath as the cop pores over the ID card, even though Yami knows he won’t see anything to indicate it’s a forgery. Of course, technically, it _is_ a forgery, but it’s a flawless one.

 

“Fine.” The officer pockets the wallet and turns Yami around, pushing his back to the wall and glaring down at him. His eyes are shockingly blue. “You’re under arrest, Namonaki.”

 

There’s a bead of sweat on Yami’s temple and his cheeks are still flushed, but his gaze is level and his chin is up. “On what charge, officer?”

 

“I’m going to start with arson, destruction of property, and reckless endangerment. We’ll see if we can make murder stick. And, of course, resisting arrest.” That arrogant smugness is back on his face and Yami’s disgusted that he finds it _attractive_ on the tall, sharp cop.

 

“Just because you saw me in a park near a crime scene?” He smirks. “Or is this because you lost the chess match?”

 

That wipes the smug look from his face but Yami is irritated to discover that his icy glare is just as appealing.

 

The cop leans in, his voice low and intimidating. “I have a lot more on you than just seeing you at the crime scene, brat. And by the time I let you out of my interrogation, I’ll have everything I need. So why don’t you make this easy for both of us? I can get you a good plea deal.”

 

Yami’s heart is racing almost as fast as his thoughts.

 

The cop is bluffing. He must be. Yami’s always been meticulously careful. If he has any evidence at all, it’s circumstantial. He’s standing so close. Yami has to get away, immediately.

 

The cop’s hand is still gripping Yami’s shoulder as he continues, “And we’ll have a rematch of that chess game.”

 

Yami laughs, despite his cold sweat and pounding heart, fidgeting quietly in the cuffs. “I knew it. You don’t like to lose, do you, officer?”

 

“No one likes to lose,” he snaps.

 

Yami has already twisted his narrow hand free of one cuff. He shakes his head, keeping his arms carefully in place behind himself. “It’s more than that. I know, I’m the same way. You and I are used to high-stakes games, officer. Games where a loss means you’re as good as dead.”

 

He sees the uncertainty in the cop’s frown and presses his sliver of advantage, leaning in and up, lowering his voice to a purr, letting his hot breath play on that sharp cheekbone. “But a win doesn’t have to be clean, does it? I apologise...”

  
The empty cuffs hit the ground with a rattle, and as the cop’s eyes widen, Yami punches him cleanly in the throat, his other hand already in the cop’s pocket to grab his wallet, he twists past him, kicking one leg out from under him as he moves … and runs as fast as he ever has in his life.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a surprisingly difficult chapter to write, even though this (failed) arrest scene is exactly the kind of outrageous prideshipping moment I started this fic for. I found it tricky to balance their canon personalities with their roles here. It's much easier when they're just solving puzzles and playing games, let me tell you!
> 
> I'm on Tumblr as pharaohsparklefists, recapping Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters.
> 
> I'm on Patreon at www.patreon.com/pharaohsparklefists and patrons can get bonus content for this fic, among other things!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yami and Seto both get back to their respective business, too busy to dwell on a strange encounter with an adversary. That doesn't mean it's easy to get it off their minds...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is I, returned from hiatus!
> 
> I continue to not own Yu-Gi-Oh!

 

 

Seto grips the steering wheel of his parked police cruiser and stares at the almost-imperceptible pattern of crossing lines in the shatterproof windshield. He can’t stop running through the failed arrest again and again in his mind. He let the little punk distract him. He shouldn’t have let him turn, he should have made him keep his face to the wall. He shouldn’t have let him get so close, he shouldn’t have lingered, he shouldn’t have allowed his attention to waver from his task for even a moment. He shouldn’t have noticed how he smelled of cinnamon and cigarette smoke, he shouldn’t have wondered, even for a moment, what his skin felt like under his tight leather trousers.

 

He shouldn’t have listened to a word he said. He’s nothing like that bratty criminal.

 

_You and I are used to high-stakes games, officer. Games where a loss means you’re as good as dead._

 

Seto shakes his head quickly.

 

His phone buzzes and he snatches it up, glaring at the glow.

 

**_Mokuba_ **

**Can’t wait to see u, even for sucky dinner. :P Can u get there early?**

 

He sighs and automatically checks his watch, even though the time is watching him from his phone screen. He’d forgotten, and now he has less than an hour. He wanted to go back to the office and get some work done… But Mokuba comes first. And anyway, he has no desire to rush to write up that encounter.

 

He pulls into the road, heading for HQ to swap cars and change.

 

No one would know. If he just … didn’t write it up. He’ll write up his encounter with the real Yugi Mutou, then say he left. He’ll keep Yami Namonaki’s name to himself. It won’t be that hard to find him, and once he does, it won’t matter.

 

Even if it comes out later that he saw him in that alley, he can say Namonaki is lying about the failed arrest. Who will anyone believe? Seto Kaiba, model young detective, the man who finally solved the Ghost Arsons? Or some piece of shit arsonist who uses dirty tricks to evade custody?

 

* * *

 

An hour later, driving his own Honda Acura, he’s on the side of the city centre where there are restaurants that offer bottles of wine that cost as much as the dinky K-Class cars driven by people on the other side.

 

He barely glances at the valet taking his keys as he gets out of his car, distracted by the young man jumping up from the plush couch just inside the hotel lobby. Mokuba bounds through the double doors to greet him, grinning infectiously.

 

“Big brother!”

 

“Hey, kid.” Seto grants him a smile, finding it weird that he has to raise his hand to almost his own height to ruffle his not-so-little brother’s hair. “I still can’t get used to your short haircut, you know.”

 

Mokuba laughs. “It’s still way longer than yours! And you don’t get to complain after cutting your hair scary short your first year in the academy…!”

 

They’re both in neat suits, they walk in slowly together, dragging out this brief time. Mokuba makes the most of it: filling Seto in on how his classes are going and dragging at least a few answers out of his reticent big brother. Seto’s still tense and he know’s Mokuba can tell, but before Mokuba can ask--

 

“There’s my boys!”

 

Both Kaiba brothers stiffen and Mokuba draws closer to Seto almost imperceptibly.

 

But this is in public, so Mayor Kaiba is all clean, gleaming smile and fatherly pats on the shoulder as he brings his adopted sons into the hotel restaurant and orders one of those bottles of wine that would cost a poorer man his car.

 

Seto and Mokuba sit together opposite him, as they always do, so Mokuba can grab Seto’s hand if he needs to. He’ll be 21 soon, so he doesn’t need to hold his big brother’s hand anymore.

 

Except when he does.

 

Gozaburo lights a cigar and dismisses his aide, and Seto mentally counts the days until Mokuba is 21 and no longer dependent on Gozaburo for anything except his college tuition and living expenses. Gozaburo surveys both brothers, thick eyebrows over gleaming eyes, his suit as sharply cut as his silver buzz-cut.

 

“So, Seto. How’s playing cops and robbers?”

 

His usual line. Seto’s jaw tightens.

 

“Same as usual.”

 

“Is it?” Gozaburo blows smoke into the air and leans back. He’s still got that fatherly smile in place, but his tone, out of earshot of anyone but the two younger Kaibas, is steely and mocking.

 

Seto frowns slightly, quickly running through his last three meetings with his captain and a mental list of this week’s headlines. Nothing that Gozaburo would comment on, surely.

 

“Not that you care.” Seto keeps his voice low and his expression neutral. Everything has to look perfect for any of Gozaburo’s constituents. Especially the kind of constituent that would frequent this class of establishment.

 

“Of course I care! I was very proud to hear you’ve been assigned a major unsolved case, and solo to boot. That’s my boy!”

 

Mokuba’s eyebrows raise into his effortlessly-stylish-but-careless fringe at Gozaburo’s sudden return to his “happy families” voice, but Seto isn’t surprised. The waitress is approaching their table so the performance is back on.

 

Seto raises his menu, his mind racing. Why does Gozaburo care about the arson case? Why does he even _know_ about the arson case? As Mayor, Gozaburo knows more about the high-profile cases Seto’s division tackles than the average avaricious asshole he would otherwise be, but he rarely discusses them with Seto. He makes his blatant disdain for Seto’s chosen career clear at every available opportunity behind closed doors. This is only the second time he’s brought up a case, and the first time - a few months ago - was what tipped Seto off to the idea that Gozaburo may be complicit in something more criminal than just your ordinary, everyday corruption and bribery. Gozaburo had been careful, he’d brought it up casually and given Seto nothing concrete to work with, but it had raised Seto’s suspicions…

 

Orders taken and menus confiscated, no longer usable as a barrier, Seto forces himself to arrange his expression to pass for hopeful. He hopes.

 

“It’s a big break for me. Unsolved for years. The department must be taking it seriously, if it came across your desk?”

 

Gozaburo drops his faux-familial tone again. “It just came up in conversation with the Police Commissioner at lunch, that’s all.” A smirk that passes for a smile from a distance. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

 

Seto’s eyes narrow but he smiles thinly. “Of course.”

 

“But it sounds like an opportunity for you to prove yourself. It’s a dangerous case, boy. Going up against a criminal with that much blood on their hands, alone.”

 

Seto sees Mokuba’s eyes widen from the corner of his eye and curses Gozaburo.

 

“I can handle it.” It comes out sharper than he intends, earning himself a warning look from Gozaburo.

 

“So, Mokuba, tell me about your public policy class! Going to take after your old man, are you?”

 

The waitress is back with their drinks, Gozaburo’s smile is back in place. And Seto uses his cola as an excuse to stay quiet. Mokuba’s two sentences into his answer when Gozaburo gestures to cut him off.

 

“I don’t care.” His tone cold behind his gleaming smile. “Both of you, listen. Re-election is coming up and every year you become less useful to me. Reporters go nuts over a couple of snot-nosed orphans, and I made the ‘earnest teenagers’ angle work, but it’s hard to care about a college nerd and a _cop_.” He sneers the word.

 

Mokuba’s eyes are fixed on his napkin and Seto’s gripping his glass a little too tightly. They both hate election campaigns and every term, Gozaburo seems to start sooner.

 

Gozaburo continues. “Seto, you’re useless except when you make some high-profile arrest or get some award. In fact, my campaign manager tells me you’re a liability, but it turns out only among young and minority voters.” He laughs. “They’re too lazy to vote anyway. But still, you don’t deliver any demographics. You’ll take a back seat this time, just the bare minimum appearances to show what a nice family man I am.”

 

Seto tells himself that if he spits in Gozaburo’s face now and walks out, it will mess things up for Mokuba and remove his access to Gozaburo’s office, which he will need to eventually - soon - have Gozaburo arrested.

 

“Yes, _Father_.”

 

Gozaburo gives him a warning look for his sarcasm but continues. “Mokuba, it’s time you started taking your future seriously. I’m giving you two years post college before I expect to see you elected to the city council. I don’t intend to give up the perks of being Mayor when I retire, which means I need you ready for election within the decade. You’ll join me at campaign events as often as possible, either speaking or sitting in the front row looking youthful yet professional. Maybe do something about your mop of a haircut.”

 

Mokuba nods, playing along. Seto has explained how they have to keep on Gozaburo’s good side for the moment, but he feels a stab of guilt every time he sees Gozaburo use Mokuba like this.

 

But the wait will be over soon.

 

* * *

 

Yami waits until after dark before he returns to the Kame game shop, this time approaching from the street behind, jumping the back fence, and climbing the tree that overlooks the skylight in Yugi’s room, swift and silent as a ghost.

 

Inside, Yugi’s sitting at his desk, putting together a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle of a densely-packed forest landscape, when a slight shadow falls across the skylight, a figure blocking the glow of the city lights. Yugi looks up … and his face lights up, quickly standing on a chair to open the skylight for Yami to drop through. They embrace silently, Yami burying his face in Yugi’s hair and Yugi resting his cheek on Yami’s shoulder, wrinkling his nose at the smell of cigarette smoke.

 

“You’re _so_ late!”

 

Yami laughs.

 

Ten minutes later, Yami’s sitting on Yugi’s bed, legs curled under him and a cup of hot cocoa in his hands, while Yugi sits on his desk chair, turned to face the bed, his cup beside him and his legs stretched out to rest on the bed.

 

“You got _arrested_?” Yugi’s eyes are as wide as they go, which is huge.

 

Yami shakes his head quickly. “Not really!”

 

“How do you _not really_ get arrested?!”

 

Yami has to explain, and he does, feeling his cheeks redden as he relives the cop’s long fingers dipping into his pocket. He skims over how he distracted him, but he knows Yugi can tell he’s flustered.

 

When he’s finished, Yugi tells his side of the story; the brusque questioning the cop went through.

 

“I pretended I didn’t know you existed ... I’m pretty sure he believed me.” Yugi looks worried.

 

Yami nods. “I’m sure he did.” He sighs. “But it’s much too close for comfort. I’m going to have to lay low for a while, aibou.”

 

Yugi’s mouth turns down, but he nods. Yami has had to hide out before, and Yugi always hates it. Even seeing each other only once or twice a week isn’t enough; they used to be completely inseparable and even after almost seven years, they’re still not used to being apart so much.

 

Yami manages a smile for him. “It won’t be for long. It can’t be. We’re running out of time. But soon all of this will be over, I promise.”

 

“I just want you to be safe.” Yugi climbs onto the bed and sits beside him instead. “That would be enough. I don’t need anything else. I couldn’t leave Sugoroku, anyway. I don’t need to be rich, I just … I just want you to be safe.”

 

Yami shifts a little closer and puts his hand on Yugi’s.

 

After a long moment of silence, Yugi shakes himself out and smiles at Yami. “Well, you’re here now, and you might as well stay a while, right?”

 

Yami thinks he should go, he can’t help but feel that his very presence endangers Yugi ... but the thought of spending a few hours with his twin, warm and loving, is too tempting to refuse. He smiles back. “I can’t stay all night … but yes, please. What do you want to do?”

 

Yugi’s grin turns mischievous. “Well, I was going to watch a video Jounouchi sent me. He’s been relying on me for recommendations for years, you know, but he says he found a good site with stuff with men _and_ women...”

 

He bursts out laughing as interest turns to realisation on Yami’s face, accompanied by a pink blush across his cheeks.

 

“Aibou!”

 

Yugi looks innocent. “What? You’re the one who seduced a police officer today!”

 

Yami’s blush darkens, turning a very attractive shade of red. “I just--”

 

“And I can hardly blame you! He was really good looking, and you know I’m a sucker for blue eyes...”

 

Somehow Yami’s cheeks get even redder.

 

“Wait, did you _like_ him?” Yugi’s eyes and grin both widen, but he squeezes Yami’s hand to let him know his teasing is gentle.

 

Yami shrugs, flustered. “He’s hot, that’s all.”

 

Yugi giggles. “An arsonist with a crush on a cop!”

 

* * *

 

Seto offers Mokuba a ride home. Gozaburo had wanted to take Mokuba with him to meet his campaign manager at another hotel bar, but Mokuba claimed to have an important essay to finish and managed to escape with Seto after dessert.

 

“I lied.” Mokuba opens with, as he slides into the passenger seat of Seto’s car. “There’s no essay. But I do need to go home, I’m working on a piece for the university newspaper.”

 

Seto nods. “Smart of you not to say it. He might hate journalists even more than cops. The campaign team will find out, though, if you’re publishing under your own name...” He pulls out and heads towards the university campus. Mokuba qualified for on-campus accommodation during term time this year, which Seto highly approves of. He can’t wait for the day Mokuba will never have to spend another night at the Kaiba mansion.

 

“Yeah…” Mokuba sighs. “Mostly I do research and editing, but I want to write.”

 

“It’ll be soon. It has to be.” Seto’s glaring out the front window, hands tight on the steering wheel. “I swear, Mokuba.”

 

“But you’ve got this big case now, you were already giving up all your spare time to work on this. Maybe if you got some help…?” He’s trying to sound casual but Seto can hear the worry bleeding into his voice.

 

He shakes his head. “I can’t. It’s wide-scale corruption, Mokuba, anyone in the police force could be involved and I’m sure at least some officers are. Probably higher-up ones, but I can’t trust anyone. If I ask someone to work this with me, and they’re part of it, it’s all over.”

 

Mokuba frowns, looking out the window at the lights of the city.

 

“You don’t have _anyone_ on the force you trust?”

 

Seto’s phone buzzes as they stop at a red light and he glances at it.

 

**_Kujaku_ **

**Isis and I heading for a drink, join us?**

 

He always says no, but she never stops asking.

 

“Maybe.”

 

Seto pulls in at the university campus main entrance and Mokuba leans over to give him a quick hug.

 

“Be safe, okay? I know this case is important but it sounds dangerous too.”

 

Damn Gozaburo.

 

“It’s really not more dangerous than usual. You know him, he’s just trying to make you nervous.” Seto smiles briefly and ruffles Mokuba’s hair. “Try not to let him get to you, kid.”

 

He waves Mokuba off, then pauses. He should go home. He should go to the office.

 

But he wants a damn drink after the day he’s had.

 

And maybe Mai and Isis…

 

Twenty minutes later, he’s walking in the door of the little bar Mai favours; it can’t quite decide if it wants to be trendy or a total dive, but it’s got one of the best selections of Japanese whiskey in the city, and it welcomes off-duty cops. There aren’t many people here, but it’s a small place, cozy, so there aren’t that many empty chairs either.

 

“Am I drunk? Isis, tell me, am I completely wasted right now or did Seto Kaiba just walk in?”

 

“I told you he’d come this time.”

 

Seto sees them, sitting side-by-side in a corner booth, Mai exaggeratedly examining her drink and Isis smiling quietly and perhaps a little smugly. He huffs and walks over to them, unbuttoning his suit jacket and sitting opposite.

 

“I’m not staying if you’re just going to mock me, Kujaku.”

 

“I can probably rein it in,” Mai grins, downing the end of her drink. She catches the bartender’s eye and gestures, and a minute later, three identical drinks arrive at the table; tumblers of whiskey and ice. “Also, damn, boy. Nice suit.”

 

“Glad you could join us, Seto. Kanpai.” Isis raises her glass and the three of them clink before drinking.

 

Mai sighs in pleasure after she takes a sip, leaning back in her seat. “Nikku whiskey and good company, I needed this. It’s been some day.”

 

“I’ll drink to that.” Seto mutters, taking another sip.

 

Isis leans forward on an elbow. “Long day?”

 

“Finally a day long enough you decided to actually come out with us?” Mai grins, then raises her hands. “Not mocking, just curious!”

 

Seto rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “I had a lead today that … went nowhere. And then a very unpleasant dinner.”

 

Mai’s eyes widen. “Unpleasant dinner, unexpected formalwear. Did you go on a _date_?”

 

“You’re a terrible detective.”

 

“Dinner with the Mayor?” Isis guesses, and Seto nods. She grimaces sympathetically. Seto usually hates any display of sympathy, but something about Isis has always made him feel like she actually understands. Probably the fact that she never talks about her family either, except very occasional oblique references to a brother, or maybe multiple brothers.

 

Mai taps a finger on the table, apparently determined to restore her reputation as a detective. “But you have dinner with the Mayor maybe once a month, and leads go nowhere all the time. Did something else happen?”

 

Isis starts saying something about how Seto doesn’t have to have a reason, but Seto’s thinking about how it felt to have that thin, tight body pressed up against a wall and that rich voice in his ear and he blushes slightly.

 

“Oh wow wait do you have a _crush_ on someone?”

 

“NO!”

 

Several heads turn to look, which is more than half of the bar’s current clientele. Seto snatches up his glass and takes a long mouthful while Mai grins like the cat who got the delicious, creamy gossip.

 

* * *

 

Yami left when Yugi got too sleepy to form full sentences, climbing out through the skylight and back over the wall. He’s tired too, but he’s used to operating on little or no sleep, and he doesn’t have the luxury of time.

 

He makes his way to a bar deep in the immigrant quarter, the kind of place the neighbours would call the cops on all the time. Except the neighbours don’t trust the cops and the cops probably wouldn’t bother to show up anyway, except for the occasional scattershot drug raid where anyone with dark skin is automatically a suspect.

 

Yami had seriously weighed the risks of coming here to meet his contact, given he’s supposed to be laying low. Maybe he should have cancelled. But if he’s unlucky enough that a raid happens while he’s here, he’s perfectly capable of slipping through that net, he knows every trick and every exit. And pretty much everyone else who’s after him hopefully still thinks he’s dead.

 

Except…

 

Yami steps through the inner door and sees him immediately: pale hair and skin, dark eyes, skeletal frame.

 

Bakura.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very excited to be back into the swing of this fic, I'm very fond of it and our emotionally-repressed boys.
> 
> Mokuba was originally not even invited to this dinner but I realised I wanted to show some of Seto and Mokuba's relationship in this AU and I'm so glad I did because he really blossomed into his place in this chapter, and he made Gozaburo much easier to hate!
> 
> I'm on Tumblr as pharaohsparklefists, recapping Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters.
> 
> I'm on Patreon at www.patreon.com/pharaohsparklefists and patrons can get bonus content for this fic, among other things!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A ghost from Yami's past is back in town, while Seto takes another step towards exorcising one of his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! but I do blog about it on Tumblr as pharaohsparklefists!

 

 

Seto takes a deep breath.

 

Mai, who had been explaining the finer differences between Japanese, Irish and Scottish whiskeys to Isis - not for the first time, Seto guesses based on Isis’s slightly glazed expression - pauses and glances at him, and he takes that as an invitation to speak.

 

“I might -- that is -- I have a case that might benefit from your … input.”

 

Mai’s eyes light up and for a moment Seto is worried she’s going to start teasing him for asking for help, but instead she leans forward, delighted. “Yes! Kaiba, Ishtar, and Kujaku, the unstoppable dream team. The Ghost Arsons?”

 

Seto shakes his head, staring at his whiskey.

 

Isis taps her fingers thoughtfully against her curved golden necklace.

 

“Are you working on something you haven’t been assigned, Seto?” she guesses, and quickly adds, “Don’t worry. You haven’t let anything slip at work, and I haven’t suspected anything of the sort until this minute. If it’s not the Ghost Arsons, nothing else active is different or challenging enough to be something you’d break your solo streak for.”

 

Seto, who had tensed up, relaxes and gives her a brief nod. “I believe I’ve discovered significant illegal activity. So far the evidence is merely circumstantial and I have reason to believe the individual or individuals responsible would have access to excellent legal representation, if not simply enough money to buy their way out of trouble. The evidence I bring to the state must be airtight, and … to be perfectly honest with you both … I’m getting worried I’ll run out of time. There are only so many hours in the day…”

 

Mai and Isis exchange a look, then Isis nods firmly and Mai grins at Seto.

 

“I take it there’s a reason you’re keeping it to yourself?”  Mai muses. “Is it something the Chief will disapprove of? Something to do with the immigrant quarter?”

 

“Kind of the opposite.” Seto grimaces. “I’m sure it’s connected to at least one person the Chief knows…” He’s wondering how much more information he can give them before they work out that it’s a case against his father. Part of him wishes he could get their help on the case without letting them know everything he knows, in case they’re somehow involved in the corruption. An equally significant part wishes the same thing, but for a different reason: he doesn’t want people to know what his life is really like. He hates being thought of as the spoilt rich-boy son of the Mayor, but the truth is worse. He grips his glass tighter.

 

Mai pulls a face. “Right. You don’t know if the Chief is involved, or covering it up, so you can’t bring it to him, or anyone who might tip him off.”

 

Seto nods. Isis hums in agreement. 

 

“So what’s the case, Seto?” Isis asks. “And what do you want us to do?”

 

He hesitates.

 

* * *

 

Yami hesitates, in the doorway of the bar, his hood up, his mind racing as he tries to decide what to do -- but it’s too late, Bakura glances up and sees him, their eyes lock across the dark room. Bakura’s expression opens into rage and violent intent. 

 

Yami takes the moment of shock to assess his options. 

 

Run; but Bakura is faster. 

 

Run and hide; a short-term solution, Bakura will very likely try to hunt him down and he can’t be sure the bartender won’t betray his contact’s name if Bakura demands it, sending Bakura, a violent danger, to his friend’s doorstep. 

 

Fight him here; Bakura is sitting with two other young men, potential backup, Yami isn’t sure he can even take Bakura in a fight, he has no chance against Bakura supported by two others. 

 

Wait for him to make a move and then respond; Bakura is likely to open, as he has before, with ruthless violence, which will just lead to a fight. 

 

Challenge him.

 

Yami strides forward into the bar, eyes on Bakura. He hopes Jounouchi isn’t here yet. He’s usually late, and Yami’s early, so he’s optimistic, but he doesn’t break eye contact to check.

 

Bakura bares his teeth in what could be considered a smile if his eyes weren’t gleaming with hate. “You.”

 

Yami keeps both his hands visible - although he notes Bakura isn’t granting him the same courtesy - and keeps his voice smooth. “This isn’t your usual haunt, Bakura.”

 

He sees one of Bakura’s companions slowly stand, followed immediately by the other and glances at them, his heart rate rising. Yugi will kill him if he gets himself murdered in a bar brawl. They have dark skin like his, and the smaller one even has his nose; they could be his cousins.

 

“Or your usual kind of company,” he continues. “Don’t you hate Egyptians?”

 

Bakura sneers. “Only  _ your  _ kind.”

 

The smaller of his Egyptian friends puts his hand on Bakura’s arm, glaring at Yami. He has an imperious air, pale eyes accentuated with kohl, and stylish blonde hair. To Yami’s surprise, Bakura draws back into that touch; his friend doesn’t want him to fight and he might actually respect that wish.

 

Yami takes the opportunity. “I’m not here for you. Let’s just pretend we didn’t see each other.” 

 

Bakura’s eyes narrow and the other man tightens his grip on his arm. “Pretend I didn’t  _ see  _ you? I still owe you a long knife between your ribs,  _ Pharaoh _ .”

 

“Not in my bar.” 

 

“Stay out of this, Malik.”

 

“Your bar?” Yami asks, curiosity getting the better of him. Malik might be older than he looks, but he  _ looks  _ like he’s barely out of his teens, if even, Yami guesses around the same age as Bakura and himself. Their silent companion is older, and Yami suspects he’s more a bodyguard than a friend - tall, broad, and sporting intricate tattoos down the left side of his face.

 

Malik smirks at Yami. “This bar is under the protection of the Ghouls now, and that means my word is the only law obeyed under this roof.”

 

Yami has heard of the Ghouls - smugglers, drug runners, recently expanding. 

 

“Then I’ll leave,” Yami says, coolly and calmly. He doesn’t move yet, though. Bakura is too volatile. 

 

“You’re not going  _ anywhere _ ,” Bakura proves Yami’s expectations by hissing. “You’ve avoided your punishment long enough and I’m not letting you sneak away again.” His arm tenses and Malik pushes himself between Bakura and Yami. His probably-bodyguard immediately steps forward, ready to intervene.

 

People at other tables are resolutely not-watching, except for the handful of patrons who have casually decided this is the perfect time to stroll quietly and inconspicuously outside for a smoke. One young woman, who had been texting and sipping a beer, suddenly downs it and leaves.

 

Yami smirks. “You don’t want to cause a scene in Malik’s bar, do you, Bakura? It would be a terrible shame if the police raided the place tonight. Who knows what they might find...”

 

“Exactly,” Malik hisses to Bakura. “So cut it out.”

 

“I thought  _ your word _ was the only law here,  _ Master  _ Malik,” Bakura hisses back, irritated.

 

“Oh, shut the hell up!”

 

Yami briefly wonders if the two of them are so intent on each other that he could just slip away - Bakura and Malik’s noses are practically touching - but the bodyguard is watching him. He catches his eye and gets the distinct impression that this isn’t the first close-quarters argument he’s silently waited through today.

 

Bakura points at Yami. “Fine, we’ll do this out the back. Come with me.”

 

Yami actually laughs, a sudden, quick sound he hopes doesn’t come across as nervous. “Why on earth would I go with you to a place with no witnesses? You explicitly threatened to murder me only moments ago!”

 

“He makes a good point,” Malik smirks, earning a glare from Bakura.

 

He suspects Bakura’s at the end of his patience and he isn’t at all confident in how seriously Bakura will take Malik’s wishes if the alternative is Yami’s escape, so Yami returns to his original plan. 

 

“Deal me in,” Yami says, nodding to the kabufuda cards on the table.

 

This time it’s Bakura who laughs, cold and sharp. “Fuck off.”

 

“If I win, I leave by the front door, alone and unharmed. If you win, I’ll leave by the back door, with you.” Yami stares Bakura down, his heart pounding but his expression calm and determined.

 

There’s a pause. Malik and the bodyguard share a glance as Yami and Bakura stare each other down.

 

“Fine. Oicho-Kabu, just you and I. I’m banker. Shake on it.” 

 

Bakura offers his hand and Yami takes it after only a slight hesitation. Banker is the better position, they should really play twice and trade roles. But he wants to get the hell out of here before Jounouchi shows up, and he’s confident he can win even with the handicap.

 

“Very well.”

 

Bakura and Yami sit opposite one another and Bakura gathers the cards to shuffle, flashing his sharp white teeth at Yami.

 

Malik grins and sits back down, settling in for a show. “Excellent! Very civilised, boys. Another round, on me, including for our  _ guest _ , Rishid.”

 

* * *

“Another round?” Mai asks. “You’re our guest tonight, Seto!”

 

Seto glances down at his glass. He’s only halfway through his whiskey, but Mai’s already out of her seat and across to the bar. He doesn’t bother calling after her, but does take another sip.

 

“She’s excited,” Isis explains unnecessarily. “She likes the idea of something so … clandestine.” 

 

“And you?”

 

Isis shrugs. “I prefer to be honest, given the choice, but I’m comfortable keeping things hidden when it’s prudent.” She glances at Mai, her gaze lingering a moment. “Some things burn up in the sunlight.”

 

Mai returns to the table with three glasses in one hand, frowning at her phone and distractedly puts down the glasses.

 

“I knew this would happen. I knew if I took a night off, that’d be when I finally get a lead. I can’t exactly chase it down in high heeled boots and without a car, can I? I knew that little imp would somehow manage to do this. You remember the brown heroin we found at the arson site? It’s recent, it’s taking off in the immigrant quarter. The Chief’s not taking it seriously, but I have an informant.”

 

She holds out the phone to show them. A photo, decent quality but askew, probably taken surreptitiously on a top-range phone. A group of young men in a dingy bar. Mai points to one: pale hair, paler skin, thin, with sharp features.

 

“I’m pretty sure this is a dealer. My girl thinks he is, or thinks he’s related to the main supplier somehow. She’s given me good tips before.”

 

Seto’s barely listening. He grabs the phone and looks closer. The pale man is talking to a short, slight man with his hood up, his face in profile. Big eyes, dramatic eyeliner, small, full lips. It’s him.

 

He tosses the phone back at Mai and stands, mentally calculating his blood alcohol level and determining that he’s still under the legal limit to drive.

 

“Which bar?”

 

“That little dive on Menko Street, but -- hey!”

 

Kaiba’s already grabbed his coat and is striding away.

 

Mai turns back to Isis. “What’s wrong with -- hey!”

 

Isis is also standing, her own phone is out and she pushes past Mai, heading for the back door, her usually serene voice rushed. “Excuse me, I need to make a phone call immediately.”

 

Mai can’t follow both of them and doesn’t try for either of them. She sits back down, shaking her head, and pulls the trio of new glasses of whiskey towards herself. “Guess these are all mine now.”

 

* * *

“Nine. This set is mine.” Yami lays down his card and smirks. “Deal.”

 

Bakura narrows his eyes. “You’re  _ not  _ getting away from me this time.” He deals the next hand, cards snapping down on the table.

 

“Temper, temper,” Malik grins, apparently thoroughly enjoying this.

 

Rishid is leaning against the wall nearby, arms folded, apparently not enjoying himself at all.

 

Yami picks up his new hand of cards and winks at Malik, whose grin widens.

 

“So why do you want to kill him so badly, Bakura?” Malik asks, pouring himself another drink from the bottle Rishid brought out from behind the bar. “Bad break-up?” Smirking uncontrollably at his own joke.

 

Bakura growls, throwing Malik a filthy glare. “Hardly.”

 

“Well--” Yami interrupts, but Bakura cuts across him again immediately.

 

“This fucking scum is the reason my family are dead.” His tone cold and sharp. Malik’s eyes widen.

 

Yami draws back very slightly from the table, in case he has to make a run for it, but he won’t until Bakura abandons the game. They shook on it. He keeps his voice low. “Bakura, I told you before, I have no idea--”

 

“Don’t you give me that shit, you’re a goddamn Khalfani, aren’t you?” Bakura’s voice is rising.

 

Malik also draws back slightly from the table, glancing uneasily to Rishid.

 

“Bakura, I--”

 

“I won’t fucking listen to your lies,  _ Pharaoh _ !”

 

Bakura’s knife - long and narrow and sharp with intent - is out before Yami can move, but then he does, dropping the cards and throwing himself back from the table, kicking his chair out from under him, as Malik grabs the bottle of sake right before Rishid grabs him. Two of the smokers, just coming back in, immediately decide on another cigarette. Bakura shoves the table aside, the cards scatter, so do the patrons, and Yami gets another stocky round table between him and Bakura but Bakura gets a handful of Yami’s shirt and drags himself into Yami’s space.

 

“I’ll fucking kill you!”

 

Yami grabs Bakura’s wrist, twisting the knife away from himself, and kicks for Bakura’s shin but Bakura hooks a leg around Yami’s before he can and grabs a fistful of Yami’s thick hair instead of his shirt.

 

“Let me go!”

 

“Not until your cold, lifeless body--”

 

Yami jabs his elbow into Bakura’s throat and tries to scramble from his hold, but he had to let go of the hand holding the knife to do it and Bakura’s too quick, he drags Yami in by his hair, pressing against his body and Yami feels the cold bite of the knife against his throat and forces himself to be still.

 

He feels Bakura’s hissing grin against his ear. “Good boy, hold still…”

 

“DCPD, drop the knife!”

 

If the bar wasn’t emptying fast enough because of the drawn weapon, it was evacuating now. Rishid, Malik, and the bottle of sake were gone. 

 

Yami stares. That fucking cop. In a formal business suit, badge on his expensive leather belt, gun drawn and trained on Bakura. How the  _ hell  _ did he find him?

 

Bakura hisses a curse under his breath … and slashes the knife haphazardly through Yami’s skin, shoving him forward and turning and running in the same motion. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bakura and Malik are two of my favourite characters to write, so I'm glad they've shown up. Another of my all-time favourites to write will make an appearance (or at least, make first contact) in the next chapter, so I'm excited for that too!
> 
> One of the rewards on my patreon (patreon.com/pharaohsparklefists) is access to drafts and behind-the-scenes info on this fic, so if that's your kinda thing, check it out!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Face to face again, Kaiba gets another chance at capturing his prime suspect. But Yami's injured, and his friends are expecting to meet him. Will Kaiba make his arrest or will Yami make his meeting?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yu-Gi-Oh! continues to not belong to me.
> 
> This chapter was hellish to write, especially the first scene. This'll teach me to write cliffhangers without having an actual coherent plan for the resolution. Or will it...?

 

Kaiba swears as the pale man - maybe 175cm tall, white hair, dark brown eyes, slim build - disappears through a door marked _Staff Only_ , and he’s torn for a moment between following him and staying. But it’s no contest. He’s here for Namonaki, and his suspect is injured, bleeding, staggering on his feet.

 

He approaches carefully, gun trained on the slight figure, who looks up suddenly with wide, wild eyes, a fox before a hunter.

 

“Hands where I can see them, Namonaki,” Kaiba barks.

 

Yami raises his left hand, but his right hand is pressed to his chest, blood smeared across his fingers. He staggers back, and Kaiba follows.

 

“I’m hurt, officer…”

 

Kaiba shakes his head, taking another step closer, slow and steady. “You’ll get the city’s best medical care at the station.”

 

Yami stumbles back another step, hitting a closed door, and leaning against it. His eyes are wide, frightened, and his breath is coming sharp and shallow. “You should have chased _him_ , he was the one committing a crime…”

 

“Don’t worry. He can’t hide from me,” Kaiba smirks. “Just like you couldn’t.”

 

Yami smiles wryly, weakly. “I’ll be able to press charges when you bring him in? From the next cell over?”

 

“Exactly.” Kaiba takes another step closer, closing the distance.

 

Yami’s hands are shaking, he grips the doorframe to keep himself on his feet. Kaiba takes another step. He can’t get a good look at the wound, he’s starting to worry it’s worse than he initially thought but he doesn’t want to lower his gun in case Yami runs. Yami’s bloodied hand is covering the wound so Kaiba can’t see it, and Yami’s clothes are dark so it’s hard to estimate how much blood he’s losing.

 

First aid training. Symptoms of shock. Rapid pulse, cold sweat: Yami’s sweating but Kaiba can’t tell if his skin is cold or check his pulse by sight. As shock develops: rapid, shallow breathing, weak pulse, grey pallor, weakness and dizziness, nausea, thirst. Yami’s breathing is rapid and shallow, he’s barely on his feet ... and Seto realises he was never taught how to recognise “pallor” in people with darker skin. Shock progresses to: restlessness, gasping or yawning for air, unconsciousness. Cardiac arrest. Death.

 

He lowers his gun a fraction, taking another step forward as Yami sways and clings to the door.

 

“Let me examine your wound, Namonaki.”

 

Yami smirks. “You just … want an excuse to touch me again.”

 

Kaiba glares hard. “You fucking wish.” He’s closing the distance, he’s within arm’s reach now. Kaiba’s arm, anyway. Yami’s arms probably aren’t long enough.

 

Yami shrinks back, wincing in pain.

 

Suspect uncooperative and injured. Talk. Defuse tension. Gain trust. Convince him to accept medical assistance. Kaiba grimaces. This would be easier with Kujaku or Ishtar here.

 

“Who was he?” Kaiba tosses his head towards the door the pale man had disappeared through.

 

“I’m saving my information ... for a plea deal…” Yami gives him a crooked grin.

 

“You could at least tell me why he drew a knife on you.” Kaiba smirks back, and indulges his snarky sense of humour. “You sleep with him and never call?”

 

Yami’s eyes gleam. “Technically yes, but that’s not why he’s--” He cuts himself off with a gasp.

 

Gasping for air.

 

Kaiba sheaths his gun and closes the distance, ducking to support Yami as he collapses. A bloody hand grips his arm, Yami’s other hand still clinging to the door, Yami’s hot cheek presses against his, his narrow, slight body in Kaiba’s arms.

 

A hiss in his ear. “Sorry, gorgeous.”

 

The doorknob turns, Kaiba gets a sharp knee in his stomach and door slams behind Yami.

 

It splinters under Kaiba’s kick. His gun points into an empty bathroom, the only evidence of his prey a bloody handprint on the wall beside the open window. It’s barely wide enough for Yami to have got through and easily higher than Yami is tall.

 

Kaiba furiously kicks open the two sorry, narrow stalls, just in case, but Yami’s gone.

 

The brat had kept his hand over the wound to hide how superficial it was, not to try to stem the bleeding. He had known Kaiba would watch for the signs of hypovolemic shock in an injured suspect; he had deliberately mimicked the symptoms. He couldn’t mimic a cold sweat but Kaiba had been too distracted to realise what that hot skin pressing against his signified.

 

Yami had deliberately feigned vulnerability and waited until Kaiba let his guard down to strike.

 

Yami had won. Again.

 

* * *

 

He had made it, again. Barely.

 

Yami drops from the window and sprints, praying to any god who might still listen to him that he didn’t choose the same direction as Bakura did.

 

If he did, Bakura didn’t wait around for him.

 

Ten minutes later, he stops to catch his breath and murmur his thanks to Sekhmet, safe, at the top of a fire escape ladder on the side of a quiet apartment block. He stares over the city and lights a cigarette with shaking, bloody hands to take a long drag.

 

He had made it. But it was close, and not just because the cop had a gun on him. He had almost hesitated when the cop grabbed him. Yami had deliberately manipulated that moment of closeness to escape, he hadn’t intended to _enjoy_ it so much. Those strong, firm hands, those icy blue eyes, that cool cheek brushing against his as he whispered his goodbye.

 

Yami shakes his head sharply, taking another long drag on the cigarette. He can’t afford this, it’s ridiculous. He’s never had a problem shaking a cop before, he has to shake this one off too.  

 

He takes out his phone. Three missed calls and a text from Jounouchi. One last puff, then he crushes the cigarette against the metal railing and tosses it away.

 

Twenty minutes after that, he slips into another bar, hood firmly up. This bar is heaving, the floor black with people drinking and dancing, the air heavy with strobing music. He finds Jounouchi in the smoking section, practicing trick shuffling while Honda teases him and ekes out a few last drags from a spent cigarette.

 

“ _Yami!_ ” Jounouchi calls as soon as he sees him, and gets an elbow in the ribs from Honda. “I mean... _Yugi!_ I got your name mixed up because I am drinking!”

 

“You’re a master of deception, Jou,” mutters Honda as Yami laughs and joins their table.

 

“Good to see you both.”

 

“I’ll get another round,” says Honda, and starts elbowing his way to the bar.

 

Jounouchi turns to Yami and hands him the deck of cards. “Show me how to do the one-handed shuffle again. And tell me what the hell happened back there! I was only five minutes late and everyone was running out like the damn place was on fire!”

 

“I know, I’m sorry.” Yami sighs and cuts the deck a few times. “Bakura was there.”

 

Jounouchi’s eyes widen. “Shit! Are you okay?” He squints at Yami in the half-dark. “ _Is that blood?!_ ”

 

Honda appears behind Jounouchi, expertly carrying three pints of beer. He hisses, “Really not getting the _try not to attract too much attention_ vibe, are you, Jou?”

 

Yami shakes his head, casually shuffling Jounouchi’s deck with one hand. “It is blood, but it’s just a scratch, don’t worry about me.” He picks up his beer and clinks his glass to Jounouchi’s and Honda’s. “Fe sahetek, my friends!”

 

They drink, then Jounouchi nudges Yami. “So what’s up? Why’d you want to meet in the first place?”

 

Yami sighs, letting the cards spill neatly into a stack on the table. “I just wanted to ask you to keep an eye on Yugi. And maybe be available to pass messages to him, like we did when you were in school. Things are getting a little … hot. I don’t want to lead anyone like Bakura to his door. Or the cops, again.”

 

“Cops are after you?” Jounouchi asks, worried. Honda instinctively glances over his shoulder.

 

“Actually I think it’s just one cop. But he’s tenacious, and he already showed up at the game shop once. Yugi fobbed him off but if he figures out that Yugi and I are in contact…”

 

Jounouchi clasps Yami’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, buddy. You don’t have to ask us to look out for our best friend, but we’ll be extra vigilant for white-haired creeps or snooping cops! And you can always drop messages off for Yuug at the garage.”

 

Yami smiles, and taps his glass to Jounouchi’s. “Thank you. Tell him you met me and tell him I asked you to keep an eye out. … Maybe leave out the blood.” He tugs his shirt down to look. A shallow gash runs across his collarbone. “See? It’s not too bad. Bakura wasn’t playing to win.”

 

Jounouchi and Honda exchange worried looks.

 

“Fine!” Yami huffs. “I’ll clean and bandage it, and you won’t tell Yugi.”

 

“Yeah, you actually bandage your stab wound like a normal person, and we won’t tell your brother you got stabbed,” Honda snarks.

 

“I think a normal person might go to the doctor with a stab wound…” muses Jounouchi.

 

“It’s not a stab wound! It’s a minor gash!”

 

* * *

 

A minor gash.

 

He let his prime suspect slip right between his fingers because of nothing but a minor gash. And he called him _gorgeous_.

 

Kaiba once again finds himself staring at the windscreen of his car, gripping the steering wheel. His suit has blood on it. He has nothing to show for two days on the case. He ran out on Kujaku and Ishtar.

 

He promised Mokuba he would shower and sleep at home except in emergencies.

 

He drives home.

 

A minor gash.

 

_Gorgeous?_

 

By the standards of any other detective he works with, he’s rich. But he knows better than any of them how quickly “rich” can become “destitute”. His salary is nothing much, but he has several accounts besides the one his salary pays into, some of which are offshore. Gozaburo liked to test him. All through high school and university, Gozaburo would give him money, a target and a time limit. “Double this within a month.” “Within a week.” “Start a property investment portfolio, urban residential, turn a profit within six weeks.” He always took the money back, and he stopped doing it when Seto joined the police force. But that was six years too late. Seto had made cash deals for less than he claimed. He’d run the money through six or eight or a dozen accounts, writing off “fees”. He’d claimed expenses. He’d even falsified documents a few times. Every time Gozaburo gave him a million and demanded two million back, he got it, and every time, tens of thousands went into another of Seto’s secret accounts. Every time he doubled Gozaburo’s money, he doubled or tripled his own.

 

He doesn’t save much from his salary, aside from the mandatory pension contribution. He used to live in the barracks, when he was a newly-qualified community police officer; an apartment in central Domino costs more than the housing allowance he’s entitled to. But … other people lived in the barracks. It wasn’t much better than the police academy dormitories.

 

His apartment building has an underground car park. He pays extra for a dedicated space, and had managed to claim the one right next to the lift. He glares at the rising numbers, arms folded, as the lift brings him to the 21st floor.

 

Unload gun, stow gun and ammunition in safe. Shower. Change clothes. Eat.

 

He checks his watch as he exits the lift. He’ll have time for another hour’s work after that, and still get four hours of sleep.

 

His apartment looks like a model they use to show people how modern and ergonomic and well-fitted these apartments are. Except that usually model apartments have unassuming artwork featuring fruit or fields, but Seto has chosen a dramatic oil painting of a silver dragon to hang over the couch, even larger than the bank of sleek monitors on the opposite wall.

 

Gun stowed and door double-locked and bolted, Seto finds himself staring out one of the large windows. That brat is out there somewhere, revelling in another victory against him. He drags off his tie.

 

_Gorgeous?!_

 

He relives their exchange, the tense back-and-forth. He had tried to mock him but Yami had _agreed_ . Had he really slept with Kujaku’s suspect, the pale man? Surely not. Kaiba clenches his fist, glaring at the next skyscraper over. He wouldn’t just admit something like that if it was true. He’s a criminal, a liar, he’s flirting because he’s immoral. He’s making fun of Kaiba, as Kaiba made fun of him. As Kujaku makes fun of him when she asks about _dates_ or _crushes_.

 

He stalks off to shower, stripping out of his bloodied suit jacket and kicking off his shoes with perhaps more force than necessary.

 

He had felt so slight in Kaiba’s arms, but heavier than he looks, all tight muscle and hot skin.

 

Kaiba shakes his head to clear it, turning on the shower a little hotter than he usually prefers and quickly unbuttoning his shirt. The base of his spine prickles and his skin is heating up as the air does, as the shower does.

 

A cheek against his, breath in his ear. _Sorry, gorgeous._

 

His jaw tightens. He unbuckles his belt … and realises he’s quickly becoming aroused. He almost growls in frustration, quickly shoving away all thoughts of the case. His body’s betrayals are irritating at the best of times. He knows from experience that ignoring it is perfectly possible, but exerts an ongoing toll on his concentration.

 

Seto quickly divests himself of the rest of his clothes, turning his back on the bathroom mirror, and steps into the hot shower, letting the jets hit his face and the water run down his naked body. He shifts his feet apart and rolls his shoulders. The heat between his legs is building.

 

This is the bodily function that most annoys him for wasting his time. It doesn’t serve a purpose.

 

Resting his forearm against the tiled wall of the shower, fist clenched, he grasps his erection in his other hand, keeping his mind blank. Firm, efficient strokes. Get it over and done with. His breath comes quickly but silently, his heart rate rises, his muscles tighten.

 

 _Gorgeous_.

 

Seto gasps, cheeks flushing, and lets go of himself like he’s been burned, but his orgasm has already caught up with him. He screws his eyes closed and lets it crash over him, unwillingly basking in the pleasure. His heart is racing. He takes deliberate, counted breaths to slow it down. Heart rate lowers. Blood pressure returns to normal. Erection subsides.

 

He takes the shower head down to methodically rinse himself and the wall off, then scrubs every inch of himself clean.

 

He must be more tired than he thought, if he can’t exert basic control over his thoughts.

 

He steps out of the shower and dries himself off, changing into a tank top and a pair of casual trousers.

 

Maybe just 45 minutes of work.

 

When Seto turns on his primary monitor, he almost spills his duck-rice-kinpira ready meal on his glass-and-chrome desk. On top of everything else, he’s been fucking hacked?!

 

The cartoon rabbit grins at him mockingly from the screen.

 

**Hello, Kaiba-boy!**

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, I have an actual coherent plan to resolve this one!
> 
> I wasn't sure if I was going to have Jounouchi and Honda actually show up, but hey, I gave them a job to do and I like including all the supporting characters! My original plan basically only had Yami, Kaiba, Mai, Isis, Gozaburo, Malik, Bakura and one other character (#nospoilers), that's all the plot _needs_, but Mokuba, Otogi, Rishid, Jounouchi, Honda and a few others flesh the world out! Plus it means the main characters actually have people to talk to, so that's good.
> 
> If you want to know more, extended Author's Notes / Discussion is a thing you can get on my patreon!  
> https://www.patreon.com/pharaohsparklefists


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Both Kaiba and Yami are offered help. But the offer Kaiba receives comes from a rather frustrating source...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a fun chapter to write, I hope you have as much fun reading it!
> 
> Blank text versions of the notes are provided at the end of the chapter, for accessibility.
> 
> I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, surprisingly.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Kaiba barely slept. He’d felt uncomfortable in his own skin in the wake of his body’s betrayal in the shower. He was still angry about letting that brat escape. He always finds it hard to get past the tension his so-called father elicits in him.

 

But it was the message that really preyed on his restfulness. And had him set his alarm for 5am, an hour earlier than usual. He’d figured out the exploit the sender had used to bypass his security and patched the software on his desktop and laptop so they couldn’t do it again, but the damage was done.

 

**Hello, Kaiba-boy!**

 

**Dear old dad wouldn’t be very pleased if he knew what you had up your sleeve, would he? Fraud, embezzlement, blackmail. Rigging juries, elections, and at least one yacht the taxpayers don’t know they paid for. A whiff of drugs, a touch of treason. I’m sure you’re collecting all the evidence oh-so-carefully but I’m equally sure you don’t have quite enough yet. It would be a terrible shame if Mister Mayor found out anything about this, so I think it’s best we meet in person. Mimosas for breakfast, perhaps? Shall we say the Illustrious Idyll hotel at 6am? What fun!**

 

**~ Your new best friend.**

 

He hadn’t gotten any work done after that.

 

And he hadn’t gotten much sleep either.

 

Now he's driving to one of the most opulent hotels in the city for a meeting with, almost certainly, either a blackmailer or a madman. Or both. He grips the steering wheel. How could this person have found out about his investigation? He was so careful, he had told no one but Mokuba.

 

Until.

 

His eyes narrowed. Kujaku and Ishtar. He hadn’t told them it was his father, but maybe he’d told them enough.

 

So this was his own fault.

 

Kaiba parks a good way down the street from the hotel and buys an overpriced coffee from a kiosk. He’s not the first customer, but there isn’t a queue yet. He sits into his car and watches the hotel.

 

He hopes to see his so-called “friend” arrive, but unless they arrived even earlier than he did, they’re staying at the hotel or they’re going to be late. Or, he supposes, it’s theoretically possible he’s here to meet a mother with twin toddlers, an elderly priest, a bellhop, or a giddy young couple lugging suitcases almost as big as they are. They’re the only people he sees entering the hotel between 5:32 and 5:57.

 

He sighs. Steps out of the car. Tosses his empty coffee cup into a bin. Adjusts his jacket.

 

Enters the hotel at 6:00 on the dot.

 

The entrance hall is granite and would be quite at home in a castle. Kaiba presumes, since his correspondent suggested mimosas, that firstly, he’s meeting some kind of degenerate, and secondly, that he’ll be meeting them in the hotel bar.

 

The former might still be true, but the latter proves incorrect. A man in an impeccable dark suit and sunglasses intercepts him as he makes his way towards the flight of stairs down to the basement bar.

 

“Excuse me. You’re expected in the private dining room, Sir. If you’ll follow me?”

 

The faintest hint of an accent, Kaiba guesses English as a first language but he can’t place a country. US or UK perhaps. He nods crisply.

 

The man leads him to an elevator and swipes a card to open it. “Floor 32, Sir. The door will be open. Enjoy your breakfast.”

 

Kaiba doesn’t bother replying, simply enters the lift and punches the floor number. He thinks 32 is likely to be the penthouse level. He had already surmised his contact is rich, and therefore likely to be powerful, but he now mentally adds a zero to his estimate. Staying in the penthouse suite of a hotel like this? He’s probably meeting a millionaire. And the richer this person is, the more likely they are to know Mayor Kaiba. There isn’t a millionaire who lives in this city who hasn’t been approached at some gala or other by a beaming, gleaming Gozaburo.

 

Although if this person is actually _staying_ at this hotel, maybe they don’t live in Domino.

 

The lift pings and the doors open and Kaiba finds himself facing a plush corridor, a door open at the end and the bright blue sky visible through it. As he gets closer he sees the large window opposite the door is almost floor to ceiling.

 

He enters a dining room -- no, a banquet hall. Huge windows with velvet curtains look out over central Domino, and the long table is certainly made of mahogany. But his eyes are on the man in the _flamboyant_ red suit at the head of the table, who stands up now to greet him. Silver hair, but a youthful face half-hidden by his hair, his visible eye dark and gleaming. The kind of gaze that misses nothing.

 

“My dear Kaiba-boy! How nice to meet in person!”

 

Just like in his message, he’s using the English “boy” instead of an honorific. For some fucking reason. Kaiba’s listening for any hint of a foreign accent but, unlike the man downstairs, he seems to have a native Japanese accent.

 

Kaiba huffs. “We haven’t formally met until you’ve _introduced_ yourself.”

 

“But of course!” He offers a hand to shake, a Western gesture. “Maximillion J. Pegasus. Delighted to meet you!” He shakes Kaiba’s hand more firmly than Kaiba expected, and then gestures to the table; his seat and the one to its right are both set for breakfast. Delicate pastries and mimosas. “Join me.”

 

Kaiba opens his mouth but Pegasus cuts across him.

 

“I _insist_.”

 

Thinking deliberately about how it will upset things for Mokuba if this man runs to Gozaburo with everything he might know about Kaiba’s investigation, Kaiba manages a thin, cold smile and sits down.

 

“ _Wonderful!_ ” Pegasus says, in English. With an obvious Japanese accent. Kaiba resists the urge to roll his eyes. The mystery of why this adult Japanese man is play-acting at being an English-speaking foreigner is not one he plans on solving.

 

“Are you personally acquainted with Gozaburo Kaiba?” he asks, in his clipped witness-questioning voice.

 

“Ooh, right down to business at once?” Pegasus’s eye gleams in amusement. “Won’t you at least try the mimosa first? It’s my own little twist, real champagne, of course, with freshly squeezed orange juice and a dash of pineapple!”

 

“I don’t drink on duty,” Kaiba says, unable to suppress a hint of irritation in his tone.

 

“But you’re not on duty, Kaiba-boy!”

 

“I will be later this morning. And I have to drive to work.”

 

Pegasus waves an airy hand. “You’re not on duty for another two hours, and half a glass of champagne won’t put you over the limit to drive. I know you’ve driven after a little tipple before…”

 

Kaiba glares. Does he mean yesterday? He drove to his ill-fated encounter with the arsonist after half a whiskey with Kujaku and Ishtar. How could he possibly know that? Unless he’s been following him, or having him followed. Or Kujaku or Ishtar told him even more than he supposed. He clenches his fist under the table. It doesn’t matter. Focus on what matters.

 

“Are you going to tell Gozaburo Kaiba about my investigation?” he snaps.

 

“Oh heavens, no!” Pegasus’s visible eye widens in apparently-genuine surprise. “Did I give you the impression I was on his side? Did you come here thinking I was going to _blackmail_ you? Poor Kaiba-boy!”

 

Kaiba just glares.

 

“No, of course not,” Pegasus continues, “I want to help!” He raises his champagne flute in a cheery little salute and takes a sip without waiting for Kaiba to return the gesture.

 

Kaiba continues glaring. It feels safer. But he’s surprised, and relieved, and he gets the distinct and unsettling impression that Pegasus can tell, and is enjoying Kaiba’s chaotic experience.

 

“I don’t need your help.” It feels like a lie.

 

Pegasus’s lips curve into a smile that Kaiba finds infuriating on some deep level. “But perhaps you could benefit from it nonetheless.” He takes a fussy miniature eclair onto his plate and takes an equally fussy little bite with a ridiculously _fussy_ gilded fork.

 

Kaiba feels the beginning of a headache. He glares.

 

“A cup of coffee instead then, Kaiba-boy?” At Kaiba’s nod, Pegasus stands and returns a few moments later with an espresso brewed from freshly ground beans in an admirably silent little machine that Kaiba would quite like to take apart to look inside.

 

“Thanks.”

 

“Anything for my guest! Do have a pastry.”

 

After a few moments of cold silence, broken only by the sound of Pegasus’s fork against the fine china, Pegasus relents.

 

“Let me tell you something about myself, shall I? I do hope we can be friends, Kaiba-boy!”

 

Kaiba only half-represses a disdainful snort, but he nods for Pegasus to continue.

 

“Although we’re meeting in my little _castle-_ ” he uses the English word, “-hospitality isn’t my day job. I let this place run itself for the most part, and simply enjoy the benefits of a city centre penthouse apartment that pays for itself, complete with cleaning service and full menu, of course.”

 

Kaiba raises his eyebrows over his coffee cup. Pegasus is not only staying in the penthouse apartment, he lives here? Because he owns the hotel? He mentally adds another two zeroes to Pegasus’s estimated worth. Gozaburo has definitely tried to become this man’s best friend. That’s enough money to overcome even Gozaburo’s predictable sneer at a man who flounced into a gala with long hair and a colourful pocket-square. Pegasus doesn’t seem like _the kind of man to have a wife_ , exactly, but Gozaburo is willing to overlook all sorts of sins for a thick chequebook. Kaiba has always wanted to know what Gozaburo tells his richest and most influential donors, and Pegasus may actually know. He may have been one. Perhaps Gozaburo let something slip that let Pegasus know what Gozaburo really thinks of _his_ kind of person. Or perhaps he played Gozaburo intentionally, wrote him a cheque and let Gozaburo pour his poison in his ear, always intending to repeat it back to Gozaburo’s worst nightmare: an honest police officer.

 

“So what _is_ your day job?” Kaiba knows he sounds more interested now. He wonders if Pegasus thinks him identical to his father: disdainful until Pegasus’s vast wealth becomes apparent.

 

“Law, dear Kaiba-boy!”

 

“You’re a lawyer?”

 

Pegasus sighs, somewhat theatrically. “I _am_ an artist. I practice law, so my father felt comfortable enough with his son’s career choices to die in peace and leave _me_ in peace.”

 

Kaiba’s eyes widen slightly. He barely knows his man and he’s telling him about his relationship with his father? Kaiba wouldn’t tell his best friend the first thing about his relationship with Gozaburo.

 

His eyes narrow.

 

Pegasus knows that. Pegasus is _relating_ with him, trading this tidbit about his own troubled paternal relationship to coax information out of Kaiba about his.

 

Pegasus is smiling serenely at him, sipping his damn mimosa.

 

“What area of law?” Kaiba elects to ignore the fatherhood angle and move on.

 

“Oh, I dabble in this and that. Mainly criminal law but I don’t spend that much time on the courtroom floor. Most trials are frightfully dreary affairs. Do have a profiterole.”

 

“I don’t want one. Do you--”

 

“Macaron, perhaps? They’re not my favourite but I can’t resist the splash of colour on the plate!”

 

“I said I--”

 

“The mille-feuille have a cheeky layer of strawberry jam along with the _crème pâtissière_ , I don’t know if that’s warning or temptation to you, Kaiba-boy! Some people think it quite the sacrilege but I can’t resist a cheeky little fruity taste.”

 

Fruity is about right. Exasperated, Kaiba takes a plain croissant onto his plate and takes a deliberate bite.

 

“Happy now?”

 

Pegasus grins, and Kaiba realises his gracious host simply wanted to see if he could override Kaiba’s objections and get his own way. And he was right.

 

Kaiba thinks he might hate him.

 

“Do you know Gozaburo Kaiba?” he asks, biting each word out.

 

Pegasus seems to realise how close Kaiba is to storming out and actually answers the question. “We’re not bosom buddies, but I’ve certainly made his acquaintance. You know as well as I do how eager your adoptive father is to shake any hand that might be holding a cheque.”

 

Kaiba nods. As he’d suspected.

 

“Let’s get to the point, Mr Pegasus. Why am I here?”

 

Pegasus sips his mimosa. “You are investigating your father, aren’t you? I’ve always been interested in the story of Mayor Kaiba’s orphaned little boys. Neither of you is as good at lying as your not-so-dear father is. Oh, you do well enough, but I’m a very _perceptive_ man, and I've long suspected you aren't quite the happy family he always claims…”

 

Kaiba’s clenching his fist again. Under the table, as though Mokuba might need to take his hand.

 

“And when you went into the police force?” Pegasus continues, “Oh, the drama of that moment! The press conference, dear little Mokuba giving his little speech about his college plans, and then you taking the microphone. I could tell it wasn’t scripted, you should have seen the look on Gozaburo’s face when you said the words _police academy_ , although he got himself under control like _that_." Pegasus clicks his fingers. "But I saw. And now that you’re in the Major Crimes Division … well, I took a guess and sent you a little message.”

 

“Illegally.”

 

Pegasus laughs. “Oh, what’s a little hacking between friends! The only publicly available email address you have is hosted on a DCPD server and you know as well as I do that Daddy has more friends in the police force than you do…”

 

Kaiba huffs. “You really just guessed?”

 

“I really did. So if you’ve been trying to figure out the leak, you can stop worrying.”

 

Kaiba stares out the huge window. He isn’t inclined to believe Pegasus. Ishtar or Kujaku could easily have told him not to let Kaiba know how he found out… But he can’t rule out that Pegasus is telling the truth … and he realises he doesn’t want to.

 

He doesn’t need help.

 

But he could use some extra hands on this case.

 

“So, Kaiba-boy. Are you interested in working together?”

 

“What can you give me?”

 

“Is that a yes…?” Pegasus smiles, extending his hand, his visible eye fixed on Kaiba. “If you agree to work with me -- oh excuse me -- let me work with you, I’ll tell you what I know, direct your attention to some possibly relevant criminal activity, and lend you my legal expertise with regard to the evidence and prosecution of the case, _pro bono_. Or rather, _pro bono publico_.”

 

Kaiba considers, his mind working quickly. Info, tip-offs, legal advice. He can’t afford to turn Pegasus down.

 

“And what do you get out of this?”

 

Pegasus’s smile broadens. “A chance to get to know my new friend! Oh, don’t give me that look. I want to see Mister Mayor removed from office, the sooner the better. He offends me on a deep, almost spiritual level. Simply put, I despise him.”

 

Kaiba grasps Pegasus’s hand and shakes on that.

 

* * *

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pegasus is so fun to write, he took over this whole chapter. So we'll catch up properly with Yami in Chapter 8!
> 
> Here are the notes in blank text:
> 
> Note at start of chapter, mostly in "hieroglyphics" style font, with a few words in "Japanese kana" style font (denoted by [J]) and a few words in "Arabic script" style font (denoted by [A])
> 
> [J]Police[/J] took last shipment from basement, [J]phew[/J]!  
> [A]Kaddaab[/A] is furious. [A]Well done[A/]! Cash flow is low. [shrug emoticon]  
> [J]Nii-sama[/J] overheard phone-call: [A]Kaddaab[/A] needs next  
> shipment sold quickly to “[J]pay the fee[/J]”. The bribe??  
> Must be someone important, [J]police, Judge[/J] maybe?  
> [J]Nii-sama[/J] will send you address. Miss you! [heart emoticon] [owl hieroglyph]
> 
>  
> 
> Note at end of chapter, in "hieroglyphics" style font, except for one word in "Japanese kana" style font, (denoted by [J])
> 
> Thank you for the update. I will do what I can.  
> I would tell you to tell your [J]nii-san[/J] to be careful,  
> but I know he always is, & wouldn’t listen anyway.  
> I hope to see you both soon, my friends.  
> One way or another, it will all be over in a month.  
> I miss you too. So does [hieroglyphs: vulture, loaf, folded cloth, quail]. Take care, be safe. [hieroglyph of human figure sitting down with spiky hair and long, stiff beard]


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yami learns the address of the next building he means to burn to the ground. But he's surrounded by traps and they would be all too easy to trigger...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yu-Gi-Oh! is not mine and is unlikely to ever become so. Although if it does. Reboot.
> 
> As before, the plain text of the notes will be at the bottom of the fic, for accessibility purposes.

 

The crackling of the flames wakes Yami up, roaring in his ears like his own frantic heartbeat, he reaches for a book to save it from the fire but it slips through his fingers and he finds himself running down a narrow flight of stairs, tumbling downwards in the dark, gripping his brother’s hand but that’s slipping through his fingers too, like water, like shadows, he turns but he’s lost in the darkness, he’s in total darkness and he’s alone--

 

The pounding of his own frantic heartbeat wakes Yami up. He’s in total darkness and he’s alone.

 

Yami clenches his fists, feeling his nails digging into his palms, and tries to imagine his brother’s face, his brother’s big eyes softening in a cheerful smile.

 

He used to keep a reminder of his brother under his pillow, something physical he could touch when the nightmares got bad. He bites his lip, hard. He doesn’t have a pillow anymore. And everything that reminds him of his twin, like everything precious he owns, is either hidden under a floorboard in Yugi’s bedroom, or locked in a safe deposit box in Domino Central Bank. It’s only a tiny handful of things, all they have left from before. A few things they grabbed in the chaos and a few things smuggled to them after.

 

Yami sighs. He’s stopped shaking, but dwelling on the past is sure to keep him awake. Not that sleep holds any temptation for him now, in case that nightmare is lurking behind his eyelids to snare him again.

 

His bedroom is currently a “top floor studio apartment”: an attic in a dilapidated building that houses several flats and a Brazilian grocery shop.

 

Yami rolls out from beneath the cheap, Western-style bed and out of his always-unzipped sleeping bag and pads across the floor to splash his face with cold water from the sink, keeping his eyes on the little pot of kohl and the cheap toothbrush on the side of the sink and avoiding his own eyes in the mirror. In the cracked slivers of light sneaking in between wooden boards, he knows he looks too much like Yugi.

 

He checks the bandage on his wound. It doesn’t need to be changed yet, but he does anyway. He prefers the feeling of a fresh bandage.

 

The other night comes rushing back to him as he does. Bakura’s gleaming teeth, his pale hand gripping the knife against Yami’s skin, their hearts both racing. A night long ago overtakes the fresher memories; Bakura’s gleaming teeth against Yami’s skin, his pale hand gripping Yami’s cock, their hearts both racing…

 

Yami shakes his head and splashes his face again, tossing the old bandage into the rubbish and washing his hands thoroughly.

 

The windows are boarded up. All but one. One is boarded up by nothing but cardboard, painted to look like wooden boards like the others. But that’s only for emergencies, so he jumps, grabs a rail hiding in the shadows of the ceiling and hoists himself up. It’s a challenge to disconnect the innocent-looking lock from the jury-rigged trip switch for the fire alarm with only one hand. But it’s worth it to climb out onto the roof. He needs the fresh air.

 

He likes this roof a lot. His skylight is surrounded by a generator on one side and a big old-fashioned satellite dish on the other, which means it’s terrible at being a skylight but excellent at being a stealthy way onto the roof. This building, likewise, is dwarfed by a tall neighbour, but is itself a little taller than average for the neighbourhood, giving him good views in most directions and a decent view of the surrounding streets.

 

Yami keeps a pair of boots in a plastic bag beside the skylight in case he needs to leave via the roof without stopping to put on shoes, so he pulls these on now and takes a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He always sleeps in yesterday’s clothes and he’s learned to sleep perfectly still. He didn’t learn that purposefully to keep his cigarettes from being crushed, but it is a perk.

 

Nursing a cigarette and gazing out at the city from his vantage point perched on the generator, Yami makes his plan.

 

In the morning, he’ll get the next address.

 

With the glaring exception of the tenacious cop now following him around, his last attack couldn’t have gone more smoothly. The building burned to the ground, no one was hurt, and the cops found the drugs.

 

Usually he would wait longer between moves, but his opponent isn’t giving him that option.

 

Gangs are getting bolder and territories are expanding. The Kame Game shop - along with Anzu’s house and Honda’s garage - are in a cheerful, busy, working-class neighbourhood bordering the immigrant quarter. When they were younger, it had seemed so vastly removed from the danger the Khalfani gang represents, but despite Yami’s best efforts to stall their progress, every month he sees members closer to Yugi’s street, dealing more and more brazenly and intimidating shop owners to pay to be “protected”.

 

He leans back against the generator and blows a stream of smoke up towards the stars.

 

The gang needs to sell their next shipment - and quickly, apparently. He would be naive to think that doesn’t have something to do with the accelerated court date. Although there’s an outside chance it’s just because the mayoral elections are coming up early next year: campaigning will start soon and the incumbent always makes a show of being “tough on crime” to convince the electorate they aren’t safe in their beds unless his steady hand continues to grip control. But he has to presume it has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with him. That kind of self-important arrogance is what keeps him alive and one step ahead of his opponent.

 

Yami ekes out a last drag from the cigarette stub and grinds it out against the metal bar he’s leaning against. Yugi is safe. He wants more than anything to see him, but he can’t risk drawing anyone’s attention to his twin. He’ll send him a message via the garage when he goes to pick up the address of his next target.

 

Something will burn within the week.

 

He stays on the roof to watch the sunrise, then returns his boots to their place beside the skylight and drops back into his bedroom. He almost doesn’t bother to reconnect the fire alarm to the skylight, but he forces himself to do it. He can’t sleep in a room someone could enter without alerting him. Breaking or opening the skylight sets off the entire building’s fire alarm. There’s a steel tripwire across the base of the doorway and a car battery on a shelf by the door, hooked up to the metal doorknob while Yami’s at home. The window with the fake boarding is almost impossible to climb through safely unless you know exactly where all the razor blades are.

 

He’s going to have to move soon, and the thought of finding another place he can make safe is already exhausting.

 

Then he realises in less than a month, he’ll either be dead, or legally dead and leaving Domino forever, or … he’ll have won. He doesn’t even really know what winning would look like.

 

He’s driven to reclaim his lost identity, but he doesn’t know who he will be if he does.

 

Yami pushes those thoughts away and gets changed.

 

The weather is hot, for autumn, so he arrives at the back of Honda’s garage wearing a crop top under his leather jacket, his dark jeans buckled suggestively low.

 

It’s not actually Honda’s garage yet, but the old guy who owns it lets Honda run the place and spends his days smoking and reading the newspaper in the breakroom. Honda doesn’t have much of a head for the business end of things but no one involved cares. The owner takes a firm view that extra business would only mean extra work. The place makes enough money to support him and Honda, and hire Jounouchi part-time, and Honda gets to tune his own motorbikes when it’s quiet, so things are in a happy equilibrium.

 

But most importantly, the back opens onto a busy, narrow street full of people and distractions and Honda has rigged their old “while you wait” vending machine to suit Yami’s purposes.

 

Yami has his note for Yugi in his pocket, written carefully on a thin slip of paper about the size of a banknote.

 

 

Yami attracts little attention as he weaves through the crowd towards the vending machine - he knows how to hide his natural charisma and this area is close enough to the immigrant quarter that his skin doesn’t make him stick out as much as in the more salubrious areas of the city. No one pays much notice as a teenage boy with big hair goes up to an old vending machine and punches a few things in unsuccessfully before finally walking away with his ramune soda.

 

And a piece of paper clutched tightly in his hand.

 

The vending machine no longer takes paper money. There’s a faded little sign over the slot for notes: “sorry for the inconvenience, coin only”. Instead, it accepts one small rectangle of paper at a time, reeling it in, hidden and safe, until the correct code is punched. At which point it offers it back out, as though rejecting a too-crumpled ‎¥1000 note.

 

Jounouchi checks it every evening when refilling the sodas: if the note begins with “aibou” in Japanese, he takes it to Yugi. If not, he leaves it where it is.

 

This is how Yami connects with his family. Occasional too-brief visits to Yugi at the game shop, and secret messages slipped into a vending machine, each nonchalantly deposited and retrieved with a bottle of soda.

 

He doesn’t even like soda very much.

 

He walks to the river, since it’s close, and sits on a bench by the water to sip his green apple soda and read his note.

 

 

Yami can’t help but smile. Ever the protector. It seemed as though he couldn’t help signing every note to Yami with that reminder, even though it had been seven years since Yami had been able to call on either of the siblings for backup. No matter how dearly he wished to. He couldn’t put them in that kind of danger. He knows they wouldn’t see it that way, but as far as he’s concerned, none of his family will be put into any danger he can take on himself.

So. Usually he targets the distribution centre but this time he’s not letting them get even that far. He’ll wait until the last crate is unloaded, and then he’ll burn the whole shipment to nothing.

Yami stares into the waters of the river.

This fire has to start silently and take hold quickly. Under other circumstances, he would even consider using an accelerant, but that cop is sure to show up at any large fire that happens in the city now, like a trained dog.

If the shipment is as valuable to the Khalfani gang as his sources say, then the gang’s leader is likely to be present on the night, and likely to risk his people’s safety to fight the fire. Yami can’t have that happen. He doesn’t want to be responsible for any death but one, and then only if he can’t get him arrested.

No, it has to be big, explosive, but absolutely plausible as an accident.

Yami smirks.

He knows exactly how to do it. And if he can pull it off, no one, not the gang leader and not even the cop, will be able to prove it was arson.

He’ll need to scope the place out, precisely plan his approach and escape, and he doesn’t have much time.

Yami stands, finishing his soda and tossing the bottle carelessly into a recycling bin.

No time like the present. And he can walk most of the way there along the river, which is a pleasant stroll. It’ll give him time to think, to plan. 

Fire was always a weapon of his family. His father spoke of it as something more noble, a symbol, a bright candle, a warm hearth, a central element of their oldest traditions, a guiding light. Yugi had embodied everything warm and bright, but Yami had been drawn to other aspects. Hot. Fierce. Dangerous. He knew his ancestors had used it for more than to light their way and warm their homes. He read his histories and learned. He had snuck into the library at night to do so, with a candle, of course, Yugi always half a step behind, terrified of being caught but point-blank refusing to allow Yami to be caught alone. Their father hadn’t wanted his sons to read the more violent and ruthless accounts until they were older.

Yami was thankful every day that he had disobeyed. 

Yami was grieved every day that he had disobeyed his father and would now never have a chance to apologise, to talk to him about it, to learn whatever other lessons his father was holding in store for when his sons were older.  

He tries to think about something else, casting his eyes around the river walkway for a distraction. He’s always like this after a night of nightmares and too little sleep. The river flows quietly on his right, a narrow pedestrian bridge arches over the river and path ahead. 

To his irritation, without any distractions to claim his attention, the only topic his mind settles on is the hot cop. Which is what he keeps calling him. He needs to find out what his name is.

No, he just needs him out of his way. Out of his life.

Yami is increasingly unsure he can trust himself around that cop. But something about him makes his mind race faster, pushes him to ingenuity he wasn’t sure he had. Usually cops are so easy to distract and escape, but this one forces Yami to the top of his game.

It’s thrilling. 

And those icy blue eyes… He keeps his expression so closed, so controlled, but his eyes burn, they blaze, they gleam like shards of ice in a wild blue sea.

Yami kicks a pebble and watches it dive into the placid river, tossing up a wavelet. 

Why does he only seem to be attracted to people who want to ruin what’s left of his life?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About time Yami got some time with us to let us know what he's thinking!
> 
> Can you tell who he's getting the notes from? If you've got a guess, leave it in the comments or hit me up on Tumblr, I'm pharaohsparklefists. I'm also pharaohsparklefists on Patreon, where the extended Author's Notes for this chapter will be published soon!
> 
>  
> 
> Notes are mostly in "hieroglyphics" style font, with a few words in "Japanese kana" style font (denoted by [J]) and a few words in "Arabic script" style font (denoted by [A]):
> 
> First note (that Yami leaves in vending machine):  
> [J]Aibou[/J], please exercise particular care  
> I will see you as soon as it is safe to do so  
> I know how you feel but this is my responsibility  
> I must restore our family’s honour and stop him  
> Try not to worry about me, [A]take care[/A] [hieroglyph of human figure sitting down with spiky hair and long, stiff beard]
> 
> Second note (that Yami retrieves from vending machine):  
> [J]124-9070 Sōko 2-Bukimina, Hatoba, Domino.[/J]  
> Friday night, 9pm. [A]“Big shipment”.[/A]  
> Be careful. Call on us for backup if you need. [hieroglyph of human figure kneeling down with arms raised and with a twisted flax hieroglyph over their head]


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yami and Kaiba both have work to do. Neither expects their paths to cross again so soon...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tragically, Yu-Gi-Oh! is still not mine.

 

 

Seto arrives at DCPD HQ a little later than usual, his head spinning. 

 

He needs to consolidate the evidence he has. He needs to access Gozaburo’s files: he knows from quiet eavesdropping that Gozaburo keeps anything incriminating in his home office, leaving his Mayoral office squeaky clean. He’ll need a warrant to search Gozaburo’s home computer and home office, because otherwise it will be laughably easy for Gozaburo to have the case thrown out of court. But Gozaburo will hear about the warrant almost immediately upon him filing the request, so how is he supposed to get to Gozaburo’s computer and filing cabinet before Gozaburo does? As soon as Gozaburo even suspects Seto’s plan, he’ll bury the evidence. Maybe literally.

 

He catches himself thinking  _ maybe Pegasus could help _ and physically grimaces.

 

“Oh, surely it’s not  _ that  _ bad?” asks Mai’s voice from right in front of him.

 

He jumps. He’s reached his desk, and Mai is sitting on it, as she does almost every morning, with her coffee cup ready for him to turn on his machine. He shouldn’t be startled by her. Between Pegasus and his poor night’s sleep, he’s more rattled than he’d like to admit.

 

“Kujaku.” He sits down and turns on the coffee maker under his desk, operating mostly on muscle memory.

 

“Morning, Kaiba.”

 

There’s a long pause.

 

“Sorry for running out on you last night,” says Kujaku, in a low monotone. Seto realises it’s supposed to be an impression of him. “You and the good whiskey both deserved better than that.”

 

He huffs, irate, glaring at the coffee machine as it spits a stream of hot coffee into his mug.

 

“Allow me to explain,” Kujaku continues. “You see, what happened was…”

 

Another long pause.

 

“I did the hard part for you. Now you tell me what the hell happened,” she prompts, in her normal voice.

 

Seto picks up his mug, grabs hers and shoves it under the spout with ill-will. He takes a mouthful of coffee, welcoming the scalding bitterness. It’s burnt his tongue and he doesn’t even care. It’s not as good as the coffee from Pegasus’s machine and that annoys him anew.

 

“Well?”

 

Ishtar appears behind Kujaku’s shoulder and shakes her head.

 

“You went to that bar, didn’t you? But you didn’t arrest anyone; neither Kujaku’s dealer nor anyone else. What happened?”

 

Seto hands Kujaku her mug, finally looking at them. His jaw is tight.

 

“You’re right. As usual, Ishtar.” He bites back some snarky comment about her crystal ball. It takes an effort, but he’s slightly concerned it might be taken as racist. It would undercut his scathing wit to have to clarify that the comparison to a fortune-teller is only because she’s so infuriatingly good at guessing things and not because she’s a dark-skinned woman in a headscarf.

 

“ _ Well? _ ” Kujaku repeats, practically glaring at him from over her mug.

 

“I went to the bar. I didn’t arrest anyone. Your dealer fled immediately, he had been in an altercation with another man. I was forced to identify myself as a police officer immediately, as he was threatening the man with a weapon. Upon my arrival, he fled the scene, along with the entire population of that dingy hellhole. I was unable to pursue, as the man involved in the altercation was wounded. His wound was superficial, but by the time I had ascertained that he did not require medical attention, pursuit was impossible.”

 

“Did you question the injured man?” There’s a current of intensity under the surface of Ishtar’s usual professionalism.

 

Seto shakes his head. He’s thinking quickly. Admit it, or not? Admit it to them, or hide it? Tell the truth, or lie? Clarify, or obfuscate? Admit his failure, or deal with things himself?

 

“He didn’t know anything. Apparently he and the dealer had had a sexual relationship and it had not ended amicably.” His mouth twisted slightly even saying it. 

 

“Was he in the photo?” Ishtar presses.

 

Seto hesitates, very briefly, then shakes his head again. Ishtar seems to relax slightly, which strikes him as odd, but Kujaku frowns.

 

“But why the hell did you race over there in the first place?”

 

A half-truth is always better than a full lie.

 

“The short man in the photo looks like a person of interest in the Ghost Arsons case. A college student who was hanging around the park behind the building. I questioned him before and he didn’t seem to know anything, but if he’s hanging around with Kujaku’s drug dealer…”

 

Kujaku’s eyes light up. “... Then maybe he had some connection to the gang using the building’s basement. That’s a real lead, Kaiba!” She slaps him on the shoulder.

 

He grimaces. “I know. But I didn’t catch him.”

 

Kujaku shakes her head. “Don’t worry.  _ I’ve  _ got a tip-off.” She grins, tapping her nose. “I know where that dealer is going to be today, Ishtar and I are going to check it out. I don’t think he’s a gang leader, all my intel says he’s a free agent, taking jobs from more than one gang but not a member of any. If I can convince him to take a plea deal, he could be a goldmine of information.”

 

Seto notices that Ishtar, standing beside Kujaku, has that fierce intensity in her eyes again. It’s Kujaku’s lead, Kujaku’s idea, but Ishtar is obviously taking it personally, and he doesn’t know why.

 

“But if you think this kid you’re after is connected, you should come too.” Kujaku finishes, and Seto remembers to nod.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Yami nods along to pretend music as he approaches the docks at a casual stroll, hood up, hands in his pockets, earphones playing nothing in his ears. It’s a usual trick of his: no one thinks he’s paying attention if he’s got earphones in, it allows him to eavesdrop and to play the part of this distracted, spaced-out student. 

 

He vanishes around the corner of a warehouse and slips from shadow to shadow in the late afternoon sunshine. His fingers are closed on the slip of paper that led him here, but he doesn’t need to look at it. He’s memorised it. 

 

124-9070 Sōko 2-Bukimina, Hatoba, Domino.

 

Like most of Domino, the buildings are numbered in blocks, not lines, so he has to wander around for a while to find the right one, but he doesn’t mind. The whole point of reconnaissance is to become familiar with the target and the surroundings. He needs to know these alleys and gates, he’s got a very high chance of needing to run away very fast once the fire takes hold.

 

He identifies his target and approaches it obliquely. A rundown warehouse sitting directly on a wharf, in a line of similar shoddy buildings. The wharf isn’t busy but it isn’t deserted: a small cargo ship and a dilapidated fishing vessel are moored, workers unloading pallets of fruit from the former while an old man mends a net on the deck of the latter. Yami doesn’t fit in with the dock workers, being approximately half the size of even the smallest, so he observes from behind stacked barrels and slips quietly and unobtrusively around the outside of the target, noting doors (two) and windows (few).

 

As he approaches the front of the building again, completing his circuit, he hears a familiar voice and freezes in the short alley formed between the side of the warehouse and its neighbour.

 

“-- think he’s mad to insist on shifting the goods so quickly, but if he wants to pay us that kind of coin for it, I won’t argue if you won’t.”

 

_ Bakura? _

 

Yami swears internally. How the hell did Bakura find him? Then Bakura’s words catch up with him and he goes cold.

 

He’s talking about the shipment. He’s working with the Khalfani gang. He’s being paid by the leader to help move this shipment, the one that it’s apparently so crucial to be sold quickly. He’s  _ working for the Khalfani gang _ .

 

Bakura tried to murder him. Yesterday! For being born a Khalfani. And now he’s  _ working  _ with them?

 

He should make his escape. Bakura and whoever he’s talking to are getting closer. They’re coming this way.

 

_ “You’re a goddamn Khalfani, aren’t you?” _

 

Bakura’s words from last night --  _ last night! _ \-- ring in Yami’s ears.

 

Malik and Bakura round the corner of the warehouse and come face to face with Yami, glaring furiously, unarmed, with his fists clenched and the hood of his jacket thrown back, a dramatic if slight figure in a powerful stance and a crop top.

 

“What the  _ hell _ , Bakura?”

 

“Hey, it’s your hot ex from--!” starts Malik, but Bakura cuts across him.

 

“You!” He laughs coldly. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, Pharaoh, I’ll give you that. And that’s not all I’ll give you…” His eyes gleam with the threat and he advances on Yami, but he doesn’t pull a weapon. Yami realises with a thrill that he doesn’t have one: directly out of a meeting with a high-ranking gang leader, he would have been patted down before being admitted.

 

“Of everyone in this entire city, you’re the one person I didn’t think I would ever have to worry about helping the Khalfani gang.” Yami declaims, righteously indignant.

 

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” Bakura sneers. He makes a grab for Yami but Yami dodges. “And it’s the Maa-kheru gang now.”

 

“It’s still Akhenden Khalfani himself on the throne!” Yami spits the name.

 

Bakura shrugs easily, then makes another sudden snatch for Yami, which Yami only barely jumps back from in time. “He’s the only Khalfani I don’t have a problem with.”

 

Yami stops, staring, the wind knocked out of him by the sheer bizarre wrongness of that claim. “You…”

 

“After all, he killed your snake of a father.” Bakura’s grin gleams and he takes advantage of Yami’s shock to finally grab him, firmly by the leather collar around his throat. Yami grabs Bakura’s arm, struggling to free himself. 

 

“He even kept proof that it was him, that he killed his own brother. Well, after that, my only grudge against Akenaden was that he didn’t allow me the satisfaction of killing Akhenamkhanen myself.”

 

Yami lets go to swing for Bakura’s jaw but a warm hand grabs his wrist tight. Malik is behind him. His breath catches as Malik grips both his wrists and drags his arms behind him. Bakura smirks, trailing a cold finger down Yami’s chest and onto the bare skin of his stomach, watching as Yami shivers. 

 

“But luckily, I can drag all the satisfaction I’m owed from you…”

 

Yami’s heart is pounding and sweat beads on his skin, but he doesn’t let his fear show, glaring back at Bakura, imperious, even with his arms trapped. Bakura lets go of his collar, stepping back to survey his prisoner

 

“Listen to me, Bakura--”

 

Bakura slaps him hard across the face and he gasps, his head flung to the side. Malik tightens his grip on Yami’s arms, keeping him upright.

 

“I won’t listen to your  _ lies _ .”

 

Yami takes a deep breath, his ear ringing. “You’re making a mistake!” His voice is slightly breathless now.

 

Bakura laughs coldly and steps in close, taking hold of Yami’s collar again with long, cold fingers, 

 

“ _ I’m _ making a mistake? You’re the one who wandered right into my grasp, alone, unarmed, with no one to help you…”

 

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that…”

 

Malik swears and Bakura whirls around, and then Yami sees the cop: tall, with a big blonde ponytail and cute pink lipstick, wearing her DCPD uniform like she’s on a catwalk. And gun unerringly trained on Bakura’s chest with a look in her eyes that tells Yami immediately that she’s both capable and willing to use it.

 

No one moves. No one speaks. The cop takes one hand off her gun - the barrel never wavers - and presses a button on her radio. 

 

“Found him! Third building on the wharf, alley north, converge on my location.”

 

Yami feels a very specific apprehension. She was looking for someone in particular. He would have a one-in-three chance, although last week he would have been cockily confident that the “him” she was looking for was Bakura the thief or Malik the gang leader. But now? He would bet his not-inconsiderable savings that she just radioed that damnable hot cop.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Seto feels a vague apprehension as he jogs towards Mai’s location. She didn’t say which “him” she’d found. He had just convinced himself that it would be too much to hope that she’d found both when he rounds the corner and sees him. That brat. Tense in a taller man’s grip. His sharp eyes fixed on Seto.

 

“ _You!_ ” It explodes from Seto without his permission.

 

Yami mutters something that sounds a lot like “Why is that everyone’s reaction to seeing me?” and the man holding him actually snickers. Seto feels his control of the situation slipping. Ishtar isn’t here yet.

 

“Release him! Hands up!” Seto gestures to Yami’s captor - 180 cm tall, sandy blond hair, medium-dark skin, slim build - and the man nonchalantly obeys, still smirking. How had  _ he  _ managed to capture the slippery little brat?

 

Yami looks a lot like he’s strongly considering running.

 

“You are all under arrest.” Seto strides forward, making sure not to block Kujaku’s line of fire to any of the three suspects until the last moment, when he grabs Yami roughly by the arm and pulls him to the wall. “You first.” He pushes Yami back against the wall, pinning him firmly in place. 

 

He’s suddenly very aware of how close their bodies are, how hot Yami’s skin feels. Seto sheathes his gun and pulls out his handcuffs and his eyes widen as he sees Yami bite his small, plump lip as though in  _ anticipation _ .

 

Focus. He’s not making the same mistakes again. He cuffs Yami’s hands together in front of him.

 

“Hurry up, Kaiba,” snaps Kujaku, her eyes still on the other two men. She gestures to the white-haired alleged dealer. “Cuff him next.”

 

Kaiba turns to her, one hand closed like a vice on Yami’s arm. “I’m not letting go of this one. You cuff him.”

 

“What!”

 

The two suspects exchange a glance, weighing their options. She can’t shoot both of them, and she can’t shoot without reason, and they all know it. Yami stands still and obedient in Seto’s grip, as though trying to convince Seto he’ll behave himself and stay put if Seto lets go to take the other two into custody. 

 

Seto would rather spend every New Years for the rest of his life with Gozaburo than take his hand off Namonaki right now.

 

“Kaiba, I swear--” Kujaku is furious but she doesn’t glance away from Bakura for even a split second. “And where the  _ hell  _ is Ishtar?”

 

As though summoned by her name, Ishtar suddenly appears, at the other end of the short alley.

 

“Finally!” Kujaku exclaims. “Kaiba, take your suspect to the car and--”

 

Kujaku cuts herself off and Kaiba follows her gaze to Ishtar. Detective Ishtar, probably the most coolly professional cop Kaiba has ever worked with, has lowered her weapon and is staring at the blond man, who has turned to stare back at her.

 

“Malik…” 

 

“Isis!”

 

Still keeping her gun trained on her prime suspect - the white-haired man still silently staring her down - Kujaku audibly whispers “ _ Oh for the love of all the things I hold dear! _ ” and Seto feels Yami shift in his grip.

 

Seto doesn’t want to miss whatever the hell is going on. He doesn’t want to let Yami Namonaki out of his sight for even a moment. But he has a duty above all else as a police officer.

 

“Come on.” He yanks Yami’s arm, deciding to take Kujaku’s offer to lock Namonaki in the car, whether it’s still open or not. “Kujaku, I’m depositing this suspect, I’ll be back in two minutes.”

 

“Fine!” Kujaku bites the word.

 

Seto holds Yami by both arms, forcing him to walk in front of him, quickly. The police cruiser is parked a short way down the wharf.

 

“You should really be helping your colleagues arrest those two, you know.”

 

The brat has the gall to sound not only calm, but  _ chiding _ . 

 

“Shut the  _ hell  _ up.” Not his best comeback, perhaps, but very satisfying to snarl in the wicked imp’s ear.

 

“They’re both involved with a major drug-smuggling operation, and I believe Malik is the leader of the Ghouls.” Yami sounds almost like he’s lecturing, but Seto can hear the ragged edge to his voice. He  _ is  _ scared. Good.

 

Seto shoves Yami against the police cruiser, keeping a firm grip on his collar, and opens the back door with his other hand. “You’ll stay nice and safe here.”

 

Yami wets his lips, that filthy flirtatious look in his eyes. “Or you could stay to make  _ sure _ , Officer Kaiba…”

 

“Stop that!” Seto feels rather than hears the note of panic in his own voice and hurriedly forces Yami into the back seat. Yami struggles, his jacket slipping down his arms as he tries to wriggle free with his arms bound. But Seto shoves him roughly inside and slams the door.

 

He stalks away, refusing to look back. He has to focus on helping Kujaku and Ishtar with the other two, but he can’t help but feel the delicious thrill of victory. His suspect is detained, cuffed and locked in his car. He can’t wait to get him to the station and into an interrogation room…

 

Seto quickly shelves his fantasies of Yami - subdued and compliant, cuffed to a table in a dark room - as he turns the corner.

 

Ishtar and the man she called Malik are arguing in Arabic; he’s gesturing furiously, she’s shaking her head, her voice quiet and outwardly calm but her expression is uncharacteristically shaken. She has her gun pointed at him but they’re both ignoring it. Kujaku has backed the alleged dealer against a wall and cuffed him; they’re both watching the argument, Kujaku frowning, the suspect with his head cocked like he’s trying to follow the stream of quick and fluid Arabic.

 

“Ishtar.” They both turn to him as Kaiba strides up to the argument. “Arrest him. Whatever it is, it can be discussed at the station, with an interpreter.”

 

There’s a tense pause, and then Isis nods, stepping back and letting Kaiba cuff the blonde man, who suddenly shuts up. Isis keeps her eyes away from his face.

 

Kaiba and Kujaku get the two suspects against the wall and Kaiba quickly pats them down. No weapons. The pale man is Ryou Bakura, 22, according to his ID card. According to “Malik’s” ID card, he’s Namu  Abn Al'Akadhib, born in Zif, Egypt, to which Detective Ishtar says “ _ Really _ , Malik?” in the most exasperated tone Kaiba’s ever heard from her. Malik shrugs, the hint of a mischievous grin on his face.

 

Both the suspects are staying resolutely silent.

 

Kaiba leads the way back to the police cruiser, his hand on Malik’s arm, Kujaku following with Bakura and Ishtar behind them. 

 

A few metres away from the car, Kaiba stops dead, causing Malik to stumble.

 

The car is where he left it. The back door is closed. Everything’s exactly as it should be. With one exception.

 

Yami is gone.

 

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, everything not in English is a very clunky and direct joke. I make my own fun!
> 
> Check out my patreon (pharaohsparklefists) for behind-the-scenes commentary!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yami gets clean away, and Mai demands Seto and Isis come clean with her...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not the owner of Yu-Gi-Oh! despite my exhortations to the universe.
> 
> There's a blank text version of the note in the A/N at the end of the fic, for accessibility.
> 
> The current plan is to update this monthly henceforth, that being a good compromise on speed and achieveability, as far as I'm concerned!

 

 

Seto shoves Yami against the police cruiser, keeping a firm grip on his collar, and opens the back door with his other hand. “You’ll stay nice and safe here.”

 

Yami wets his lips deliberately and looks up from under his eyelashes, finding it all too easy to let his voice slip down into a more suggestive register. “Or you could stay to make _sure_ , Officer Kaiba…”

 

“Stop that!” There’s a distinct note of panic in Kaiba’s voice and Yami prays it’s enough to distract him, just enough. He struggles as Kaiba forces him into the back seat, wriggling his shoulders from his jacket and willing it to fall down, enough, just enough. Kaiba shoves him roughly inside and slams the door.

 

Yami holds his breath, wondering if Kaiba will notice the dullness of the sound of the door slamming, but Kaiba’s stalking off, rattled. Just enough.

 

He’s pretty sure Kaiba won’t look back - he doesn’t seem the type - but just in case, Yami bows his head and hides his face in his cuffed hands. Playing his role; the defeated prisoner. His inner hand, the one Kaiba wouldn’t see even if he looks back, sinks a little into his hair, fingers prying. There. He slips a hairpin from the depths of his thick hair and dips it to his teeth to bend the end, just enough.

 

He doesn’t have much time. He can’t imagine Bakura or Malik will make things easy, but they’re outnumbered and might decide discretion is the better part of valour. He gives himself less than two minutes from the time Kaiba vanishes around the corner.

 

It only takes about ten seconds to pick the lock on the handcuffs. On a whim, he tucks them into his pocket.

 

The back of a police cruiser is a miniature prison. The glass is bullet- and smash-proof, the interior door has no handle, the barrier between the back seats and the front seats is steel mesh and more bulletproof glass. The door locks automatically once it’s closed and can only be opened from the outside. The whole thing is carefully and vehemently designed to be impossible to get out of (without external permission) once the door is closed

 

Once the door is closed.

 

He’d had to guess exactly where the latch was on this model. If he was right, the trailing end of his jacket is caught in it, keeping it from being fully closed and therefore locked. If the car was on, it would be singing a clear tone of warning if he was right, but it’s not on, so he can’t be sure.

 

He whispers a quick prayer to any gods who might be listening and might look favourably on this fairly blatant violation of the law … and shoulders the door with all his strength. Just enough.

 

It pops open.

 

He gently closes the door, as quietly as he can manage. That might buy him a few more seconds before they notice. Then he runs.

 

Another escape. He’d made it, on willpower and skill and quick-thinking and luck. He had enough of those things anyway, if nothing else.

 

Just enough.

  


* * *

 

 

Enough!

 

Seto has had enough of that slippery little _brat_ and the next time he sees him he’s going to stop at nothing until he has him cuffed and locked in a cell under DCPD HQ.

 

There’s a crack and Seto realises he’s snapped a pen in half. He doesn’t even remember picking it up.

 

In the driver’s seat, beside him, Kujaku’s jaw twitches but she doesn’t comment.

 

Seto forces himself to take a deep breath.

 

At least they have the two other suspects; Ryou Bakura and the man Isis called Malik but who’s carrying an ID saying Namu Abn Al'Akadhib. They don’t comment either. Neither of them are saying a word. Smart. If Seto was arrested, he wouldn’t talk either. They’re either smart or experienced enough to know that Kujaku and himself would take note of everything and spin it into a statement for them to sign. The chatty or argumentative suspects are by far the easiest to process straight into a nice cut-and-dried court case.

 

Usually Kujaku would have already started working on them, asking questions, but she’s uncharacteristically silent.

 

Ishtar is supposed to be following them in the other car and Seto catches Kujaku checking her mirrors a lot more than necessary for safety, a furrowed little crease between her eyebrows.

 

Whatever. They’ll interrogate these two, find out what they know. Ishtar knows Malik’s real name or Namu’s alias, and she speaks his first language fluently. They won’t have any trouble extending the period they can hold the pair for questioning, not when they’re obviously foreign and found in such suspicious circumstances. They’ll be able to keep them for 23 days for questioning, and by then, whatever was going on at the docks will be long over. If it’s anything sinister, they’ll have shut it down. And Kaiba will wring whatever leads he can out of these two: they know his quarry and he will not be foiled in his hunt again.

 

All these comforting thoughts are shattered when they arrive at HQ.

 

Ishtar hasn’t arrived by the time Kaiba and Kujaku bring their two suspects in. The suspects are both infuriatingly uncooperative. They both refuse to say a single word, although it looks like Malik/Namu in particular has plenty to say, behind his firmly closed lips and flashing eyes. They both refuse to even sign the form confirming the items confiscated from their persons when searched.

 

Ishtar still hasn’t arrived by the time Chief Ota interrupts. He’s pulling them both upstairs for meetings. No arguments. Petty foreigners squabbling in their dirty quarter over a few milligrams of whatever isn’t what Domino City’s finest rising detectives should be wasting time on. It’s not like these kind of guys sell their poison on streets any actual citizens worth protecting would be seen dead on anyway. He’s a little more circumspect than to say that in so many words, but Kaiba and Kujaku hear it. Their eyes meet.

 

A junior officer takes over. These two are going to run rings around the kid, but there’s nothing Kaiba or Kujaku can do about it. Without Ishtar’s information, all they can do is make sure Namu Abn Al'Akadhib is listed as “possible alias: Malik”. They have to say a third suspect was at the scene, but _was not successfully apprehended._ Kujaku wrote that part. She didn’t trust Kaiba with the pen.

 

Ishtar still hasn’t arrived by sunset. Kaiba and Kujaku snatch a few minutes at his desk, whispering under the hum of the coffee maker. If she’s in trouble, they should ditch the meetings and go look for her. If she’s deliberately avoiding HQ, they should protect her by acting like she’s chasing some lead. They decide she’s probably not in trouble. They act like she’s out chasing some lead.

 

The Chief, with a smile covering steel, thanks them for a long day and _suggests_ they both go home. Kujaku’s smile is almost as lethal.

 

“What about our suspects today, Sir?”

 

Ota waves a hand. “Plenty of time for that. I passed along the request for the extra 21 days to the prosecutor. Since they’ve both decided to clam up anyway, might as well let them stew, hmm? Anyway, these petty crimes. Hardly even worth the effort.”

 

He walks off.

 

“That’s the first time I’ve ever seen him miss an opportunity to lock up a foreigner asap,” Kujaku grumbles. Then she rounds on Seto, who’s shrugging into his long coat. “You.”

 

Seto strides past her, but she follows, grabbing her jacket as she does. They both changed into their normal clothes, which for Kujaku means dizzying heels on her knee-high boots, but they somehow completely fail to stop her from keeping up with Seto as he heads for his car.

 

“Kujaku, I’m taking the Chief’s advice for once and going the fuck home.”

 

He flings open the door to the underground detective car park and stalks through it. Kujaku has just opened her mouth to argue, following, when Ishtar’s quiet black Mazda sedan pulls into the car park. Seto crosses his arms in exasperation. Ishtar’s perfect fucking timing, as usual.

 

Mai points directly at Isis in the car, fixing Isis with a look that Isis apparently understands to mean “open the damn doors, woman” because that’s what she does.

 

Mai points at Kaiba. “Get in the car.”

 

“Ku--”

 

“Get in the fucking car, Seto Kaiba. Today was a fucking shit-show and if I don’t get answers - from both of you! - I’m done with both your ridiculous cases.”

 

Kaiba wants to say he doesn’t want or need her help anyway. But he gets in the car behind Ishtar. And Ishtar compliantly drives them to Mai’s little dive with the good whiskey, parks carefully in an overnight space, and even buys the round.

 

At the table, with no one close enough to hear over the inoffensive background music, Mai raises her glass.

 

“To not fucking up our next arrest, hmm?”

 

“Kampai,” mutters Seto. But he clinks his glass against the others.

 

“Now seriously. Tell me what’s going on. Both of you.” She levels a look at Isis. “You first. Who’s Malik? Why didn’t you want to be present when he was formally detained for questioning? And who did you suddenly need to call when you saw him in that photo the other night?”

 

Isis is silent for so long, staring into her whiskey glass, that Seto has just decided she isn’t going to answer, when she suddenly does.

 

“Malik Ishtar is my younger brother.”

 

Kaiba wonders if he looks as surprised as Kujaku does.

 

Isis continues into their suspended silence. “I know. Aside from our skin tone, we don’t look much alike. He takes after our father, with his unusual colouring. I’m told I take after our mother.”

 

“Isis…” Kujaku puts her hand over Isis’s and Isis looks up with a small, sad smile.

 

“I’m sorry I never told you.” She glances to Kaiba. She doesn’t look sorry she never told him. He gets the distinct impression she’s sizing him up, judging him, her eyes level and cool, neatly bounded by kohl.

 

Whatever she sees in him, it apparently satisfies her.

 

“I have two brothers. My older brother is adopted, and utterly devoted to my younger brother. My mother told him to look out for his baby brother before she died, and he took it to heart. We were close, the three of us, until…” she hesitates. “There was an incident. Our father did as he thought was right, but that involved a great deal of cruelty to Malik, whom he saw as his only legitimate heir, his only son by blood.”

 

Seto shudders and quickly stiffens himself to stillness. He’s gripping his glass tightly, he takes a sip, hoping the whiskey might burn away the prickling across his skin. He can empathise all too well with the older Ishtar children: defective goods, never going to be quite up to standard, never given an unconditional place at the table and expected to be grateful for being allowed in the room at all. And he knows what it is to be the heir, too, to have the crushing weight of a dominant, powerful man over him, demanding perfection and ready to beat it out of him if necessary. Or even just expedient.

 

Isis glances to him and he knows she sees too much of this in his eyes, but she doesn’t ask. He nods, and she continues.

 

“When Malik was still just a boy, he killed our father, in self defense.”

 

The way she says it is evasive, her eyelids flicker slightly, she pauses slightly too long in the wrong place. Seto’s sure she’s holding something back, but she did him the courtesy of no questions. He returns it.

 

Kujaku has no such debt.

 

“Oh, Isis. Was he prosecuted?”

 

She shakes her head. “The investigating detectives realised what had really happened, and Malik was so young. One of them in particular helped us with our statements, and Malik was not charged. It was classed as an accidental death. But...” she sighs heavily. “I was in university. I had to take an evening job, and Rishid took all the extra hours he could, so we could afford to stay in our home. Malik finished junior high school, but deliberately failed his entrance exams. He dropped out of school, and Rishid and I had so little free time to spend with him... Perhaps I should have left my university program, but I knew if I graduated I could get a much better job, and we could afford to stop working evenings and weekends.”

 

She pauses to sip her whiskey and Seto blinks and takes a mouthful of his own.

 

“I did, but it was too late.” Isis smiles wryly. “He had joined a gang. By the time I knew he was a member, he had become the leader. Rishid joined too, to protect him. I thought that was the wrong way of going about things. We fought. They left, together. I quit my job at the museum and enrolled in the police academy. I thought, we can’t rely on fate alone sending Malik another sympathetic police detective when he inevitably crosses the law again.”

 

Isis meets Mai’s eyes, then Seto’s, her deep blue eyes like adamant. “I joined the police force to save my brother. I will not flout the law. But for him, I am prepared to bend it as far as it will bow.”

 

Seto quietly lets out a long breath. Kujaku knocks back her whiskey, and waves distractedly for a replacement. They sit in silence until she has it and the bartender is safely ensconced behind the bar and out of earshot again.

 

Mai clears her throat and Seto looks up, interested in the answers to whatever question she’s about to ask of Isis, but instead, she pins him with her gaze. He’d never noticed before; her eyes are violet, only a shade paler than Yami’s and almost as sharp. A warmth creeps up his neck to his cheeks and he takes another mouthful of whiskey, determined to have something to pin the blame on.

 

“And you? Who the hell was that? The college kid who may or may not have a connection to the most recent of the Ghost Arsons, right? But why the hell would you risk the other two - definite suspects in major drug running operations - to question a potential lead? And _how_ the hell did he get away?”

 

Her expression hardens at the end. Kujaku is almost as mistrustful as he himself is. It’s one of the things that makes her tolerable. But he suddenly realises how it looks; he takes a suspect out of sight of his colleagues, against protocol, and the suspect miraculously escapes from an ostensibly locked car. According to his word alone.

 

“What are you implying, Kujaku? If you think for one minute that I would deliberately set that hellion loose--”

 

“I didn’t say one single--”

 

Isis lays her hand flat on the table between them. A calm, quiet motion but it works as effectively as if she’d pounded the table with a gavel. They both fall silent and look at her.

 

“Seto, neither of us believe you set him free. You were more shocked than we were that he’d vanished. But we’re all in this together now. Tell us what’s going on.”

 

Seto closes his eyes and takes a slow breath.

 

This is infuriating. It’s humiliating. But Kujaku and Ishtar covered for him, and it increasingly seems like the arsons might be connected to the gang operations that Kujaku and Ishtar have been struggling to crack for two years, in the face of increasing neglect and even opposition from Chief Ota and the prosecutor’s office.

 

He lets out his breath in an exasperated sigh and knocks back the whiskey.

 

“Fine. He’s not a lead, he’s a suspect. My prime suspect. He was near the crime scene the first day and he was the one who tipped me off about the basement. I thought he was a college student at first, but he matched a description from another one of the arsons. It can’t be a coincidence. So I’ve been chasing him, but that little fucker--”

 

Luckily his new whiskey arrives at this point, and he can take another mouthful.

 

“-- He’s too smart by half and utterly shameless.”

 

Mai gives him a sly look. He’s blushing again, he knows he is, he can feel it, feel the heat radiating from him.

 

“He really got under your skin, huh?” Mai muses, but she doesn’t press the matter, thankfully.

 

Isis taps her fingernails thoughtfully against her glass. “Why did you leave HQ without questioning the suspects?”

 

They give her the thirty-second version. Well, Seto does. Mai fumes.

 

Isis is still on her first whiskey, she pours the rest of it into Mai’s glass. “The Chief is meeting city hall notables for drinks tonight. He’ll have left by now. He’ll know if we go to the cells, the duty officer will have to log it. But there’s nothing stopping us going to our desks...”

 

Mai empties the glass and slams it down almost triumphantly. “Damn right. There’s something up with these guys... the drugs, the arson, everything. And we’re going to find out what it is, shut down the whole operation, _and_ solve the unsolvable Ghost Arsons, all in one fell swoop.”

 

Seto smirks. That doesn’t sound so bad to him.

 

Two hours later, they spread everything they’ve been able to find over the break room table.

 

Mai points to her photos, printed out and fanned across the top of the table. They’re all phone camera shots, most of them tilted jauntily and some of them blurred, suggesting a surreptitious photographer.

 

“These were all taken by my source. Her name is Rebecca Hawkins, she’s a hacker and a troublemaker, but she’s useful and she loves hanging around the worst bars in town. She’s got nothing to do with any of the gangs, but does little hacking jobs for pocket money.”

 

“She looks like she’s in highschool,” Seto remarks, in what he feels is a suitably scathing manner, examining her file.

 

“Probably because she is. I don’t know, she’s a criminal child prodigy. Anyway,” Mai taps one of the photos. “I asked her to send any interesting shots she got of anyone who seemed like a big player in any of the gangs, and she zeroed in on Bakura pretty quickly. She’s skittish of him, though, she keeps her distance and never shows up in the same bar he’s drinking in two nights in a row, she says she’s seen him turn violent and, quote, _no friggin way am I getting anywhere near the wrong end of his knife, lady_. Lately, Bakura’s been spending a lot of time with Malik...”

 

Isis’s mouth twists in a very slight grimace, but she dutifully studies every one of Mai’s photos, picking out Malik.

 

“So Malik is working with this Bakura person, quite closely. And now they’re working with Seto’s suspect, Namonaki? Making a deal with him, maybe?” Isis asks.

 

“Pretty weird negotiating tactics if that’s what they were doing,” says Mai, wryly, as Seto shakes his head.

 

“No, Bakura has some beef with Namonaki. When I interrupted them at the bar--”

 

Mai clicks her fingers. “Namonaki was both the potential lead you saw in the photo _and_ the injured party, the fractious former lover! You let us believe they were two different people, you sly dog.”

 

Seto clenches his jaw. “Namonaki claimed it was a lover’s quarrel, but he couldn’t possibly have been telling the truth.”

 

“Why not?” Isis’s calm voice is perfectly neutral, but to Seto, it sounds like an attack.

 

“ _Why not?_ Because who would admit to something like that if it was true? He was--” Seto knows he’s flushing red again, damn his circulatory system to the deepest depths of hell. He lowers his voice to a hiss. “He was mocking me.”

 

Mai and Isis exchange a long look that Seto struggles to interpret. Then Mai suddenly holds up a shaky photo of Malik and Bakura in what definitely looks more like a steamy embrace than a friendly wrestling match. “I’m not willing to discount a potential former sexual relationship between Ryou Bakura and a hot Egyptian minx just yet.”

 

Isis raises an eyebrow.

  
Mai coughs. “That is--”

 

Amused, Isis waves her off.

 

“So not working together, then.” Seto has regained control of himself. He stabs his finger down onto the Ghost Arsons file. “Namonaki’s working against them.”

 

He taps the file, eyes flicking over the evidence. There’s the shape of something here...

 

“They’re smuggling the drugs... it might even be the Ghouls that run that brown heroin. He’s got some vendetta against them.” Seto smacks his hand down on the Ghost Arsons file. “He burned down that storehouse. He deliberately tipped me off so I would find the drugs, but the gang was too smart, they cut and run. So he went after them again, at the docks.” He’s staring into nothing, seeing the pieces fit together. “They’re shipping the drugs in by boat, and he’s going to the source. He’s going to burn down one of those warehouses. He’s doing it to try to draw our attention to the smuggling.”

 

Seto turns to the others, his eyes blazing with cold fire, holding up the thick file of arsons.

 

“These fires are not random, or works of revenge. He’s lighting beacons.”

  


* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is having a very significant effect on how crazy suspicious my search history is... #writerproblems
> 
> Note at end of chapter, mostly in "hieroglypics" style font with a word in Japanese kana style font, denoted by [J]:  
> I need your help. I'm running out of time.  
> 1) Is the shipment still coming in? Cops at [J]dock[/J].  
> 2) I need evidence of his crime from [actual hieroglypics: box, feather, mouth, mouth, owl, surrounded by rectangle with open section at the bottom]  
> Destroy this note immediately.  
> See you very soon, till then, be safe. [hieroglyph of human figure sitting down with spiky hair and long, stiff beard]
> 
>  
> 
> If you want detailed Author's Notes for this fic, check out my patreon: pharaohsparklefists
> 
> I love getting comments on this (and all fics!) so please let me know what you think, even if it's short and/or incoherent!


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Both Yami and Seto decide it's time to take some risks to get what they need.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wherein the author's search history becomes even more suspicious...
> 
> Also I still do not own Yu-Gi-Oh!

 

 

“This is a huge risk,” Yami says, crossing the roof to join the two figures silhouetted against the Domino skyline. One tall, with broad shoulders. The other barely taller than him, curvy, with long, thick hair.

 

The smaller figure turns, and immediately flings herself into his arms. “Prince!”

 

His breath is knocked out of him in a laugh as he hugs her tight.

 

The taller figure watches. It’s hard to tell his expression in the half-light of the city night, but Yami suspects he’s trying not to smile.

 

“ _This_ is a huge risk?” Mahaad - his childhood friend, his first protector, his loyal and trusted lieutenant - throws up his hands and shakes his head. “Meeting on a secluded rooftop with a dozen failsafes is a _huge risk_ , but you want to casually break into the Khalfani gang’s headquarters on a week’s notice and that’s completely reasonable?”

 

Yami gives Mana - his onetime constant companion, his sweet and mischievous partner in childhood crimes, his brave and hilarious confidante - a last squeeze and lets her go, facing both of them.  

 

“I know.” Yami grimaces, eyes down. “If I had a way to do this by myself that had any hope of success, I wouldn’t involve you. I know what a risk it is for you to be caught helping me.”

 

“That’s not what he means,” Mana chides.

 

Mahaad grabs Yami’s shoulders, startling him into looking up, eyes wide.

 

“We swore we would help you, whatever it took. You’re our friend, our Prince.” Mahaad stares into Yami’s eyes, as though willing him to understand. “We’re not worried about the risk to us. We know our part and we play the role of monsters very well. We’re worried about what will happen to _you_ if you’re caught in that house.”

 

Yami gazes at him. It feels so good to be held by him, by either of them. It feels safe, however fleetingly.

 

Mahaad lets him go and he and Mana each take one of Yami’s hands, as they did the day they swore to stay loyal and one day help him reclaim his heritage. His eyes well with tears and he manages to smile at them.

 

“I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve already done for me. But I will ask you to do more.”  
  
They both nod, and Mana grins at him. “We’re ready!”

 

“In two days time, I’m going to … create a distraction. Things will be in uproar, from soon after sunset. At midnight, I’ll need a way in to the Palace. I need to get into his private study, and I’ll need a lookout and an exit strategy. Can you do it?”

 

* * *

 

“Can you do it?”

 

Mokuba nods, his jaw set. A little sour about it, but determined. “I dunno if he’ll believe me…”

 

“He will.” Seto squeezes Mokuba’s shoulder. “He’s never credited you for the ruthless little hellion you are. I think it’s the big, innocent eyes.”

 

That gets a laugh, and Seto feels a deep sense of relief to see Mokuba relax.

 

“I used to do all sorts of things!” Mokuba grins. “I stole things all the time, and smuggled things to you, and he always assumed you stole them, or he’d misplaced them.”

 

“He’s a fool to underestimate you like he does, Mokie.”

 

They share a smile, the ominous shadow of their adoptive father lurking behind it.

 

“I wouldn’t ask you to do it if I had any other choice. But he definitely won’t believe that I want to spend a weekend in the mansion. The only way he’ll believe my presence isn’t a thinly veiled ploy to steal his secrets and ruin his life, is if I show up, sullen and reluctant, to keep you company.”

 

Mokuba nods. “He’s been hounding me to talk to him about _strategic placement of my presence_ for the election. I’ll tell him I’ll do it this weekend, at the mansion. I’ll say I want one of Cook’s dinners. Honestly, she is the one thing I miss. The four different meats in one meal, the fresh-baked bread, those divine roast potatoes she would serve with roast beef…”

 

“Pity dear Father always ruined my appetite… Although you never seemed to have that problem,” Seto teases. “Anyway, forget him. We’ll hole up in the home cinema on Friday night. _That’s_ the one thing I miss.”

 

“Come on, like this isn’t big enough for you?” Mokuba laughs, gesturing to the screen on the wall opposite Seto’s couch.

 

Seto eyes it critically. “I don’t like the bezel. I’ve been meaning to rework it, but I’d need a full day off… Maybe at New Years.” He rubs his hand across his eyes. He can’t remember the last time he had a day off. He’s not even sure he remembers the last time he worked a day without overtime. On the days he doesn’t work paid overtime, he works on the Gozaburo case…

 

Mokuba nudges him. “Can you tolerate the bezel long enough to play a few rounds?” Picking up a controller.

 

“You’re on, kid.”

 

“Let’s go!”

 

* * *

 

“They’re gone!”

 

Seto almost trips over Mai’s ambush in the corridor. He frowns. “Who’s gone? Why are you whispering?” But he lowers his voice too.

 

They step into a corner.

 

“Our fucking arrests, Kaiba! Bakura and Isis’s brother. They were released this morning, before I got here.”

 

“What!”

 

Seto stares at her. Of all the things bothering him about this case, he was sure those two troublemakers could at least be taken out of the equation. And he needed them! He’s sure Yami is setting fires to draw attention to drug smuggling, and that there’ll be another shipment soon, probably to the docks. Yami is going to strike again, and it’s Seto’s best chance to stop him … if he knows when and where the shipment will be. Those two knew, he’s sure of it, and now he can’t question them...

 

“No one’s released so quickly!” Seto snaps, hushed. “We submitted all the paperwork for extending their detainment, Kujaku. The prosecutor has refused an extension all of twice in the entire time I’ve been a cop, both times for the idiot sons of rich assholes. Did either of those two seem like they had a well-connected father to--” He suddenly stops, and narrows his eyes. “But one of them did have a police detective for a sis--”

 

Kujaku grabs his collar and hisses in his face. “You finish that sentence, Kaiba. Finish that fucking sentence and see where it leaves you.”

 

Seto is taller, but Kujaku isn’t short, and her heels almost make up the difference. Their noses are practically touching as they glare furiously at one another … and then Seto nods stiffly.

 

“Fine. I believe you.”

 

Kujaku lets him go and folds her arms.

 

“Isis is reviewing the paperwork, in case we missed something. But I know we didn’t.” Kujaku shakes her head. “No reason given.”

 

“Why aren’t we taking it up with the Chief?”

 

Kujaku smiles, but there’s no humour in it. “You know why.”

 

They walk together to Seto’s desk, for the scalding hot comfort of their morning coffee ritual.

 

Chief Ota sabotaged them. He diverted them away from their suspects. He assigned a junior detective to the case. He released the suspects well before the permitted 48 hour detention had expired. The only question was: did he act alone, and intercept their paperwork? Or did he file their paperwork knowing that Chief Prosecutor Ōka would refuse the standard extension?

 

If the Chief of Police and the Chief Prosecutor were both willing to contravene normal operating procedure to see Bakura and Malik released ... what the hell are they involved in?

 

Seto feels a chill just thinking about it.

 

Isis confirms that their paperwork was flawless. She, Kujaku, and Kaiba discuss it in low voices at her desk. They could possibly get an inquiry opened, but only if the Chief Prosecutor isn’t implicated. If he is, there’s no point filing a complaint, and in fact, a complaint will only backfire on their careers. But if this all comes out later, a complaint in their names could be useful, to prove they did not condone the early release. They write up their complaint and sign it, and Isis files it directly into the records, without passing it by the Chief’s or the Prosecutor’s desks. If someone goes looking for it later, it will be there, as though they lodged it formally, but unless he goes looking for it, the Chief won’t see it. It’s the best they can do.

 

After that, the days drag.

 

Seto keeps his head down at work.

 

He spends his days poring over every detail of the Ghost Arsons file, trying to fit together a coherent _modus operadi_ , anything he can use to predict Yami’s move at the docks. He compares notes with Isis, tracing everything she knows about this brown heroin flooding into the immigrant quarter.

 

He spends his nights lining everything up for the Gozaburo case. He fills out every detail of the warrant paperwork, flawless and precise, and leaves a copy with Isis in a sealed envelope, under her desk drawer, just in case. He doesn’t file it. The early release of their suspects proves that the Chief can’t always be trusted to put duty first. If the drug smugglers can bribe him, Gozaburo certainly can.

 

And then it’s Friday, and Seto finds himself driving up the long avenue to the Kaiba Mansion on the outskirts of Domino City, gripping the steering wheel, his jaw tight. Mokuba shifts uneasily in the passenger seat. The late afternoon sunshine plays across the car, incongruously cheerful. Seto thinks it should be raining.

 

“Are you sure, big brother?”

 

Seto parks in the wide driveway and kills the engine before he looks over and meets Mokuba’s worried gaze.

 

“I am.” He smirks, confident. “I beat Gozaburo in a game of chess the very first time we met him. I’ve always been smarter than him, and now his days are numbered. We’re going to take him down, Mokuba!”

 

Mokuba grins back, delighted. “Yeah! Let’s go!”

 

Inside the oppressive grandeur of the entrance hall, Mokuba’s enthusiasm wilts and Seto’s bravado hardens to a stiff malcontent.

 

“My boys.”

 

Gozaburo, strolling towards them, his tie discarded and a cigar between his lips. He never smokes them in public anymore. It’s too old-fashioned, doesn’t play well with middle-class voters and mothers. Seto hates that he knows that.

 

“You’re late.” Gozaburo beckons them and strides away, knowing they’ll follow. They do. “Dinner will be early, I’m afraid I’m entertaining this evening. But we have some time beforehand to discuss the strategic placement of your presence during the election. Mokuba’s, that is. Your presence is useless, Seto.”

 

Mokuba and Seto exchange a glance. Just get through this _discussion_ , and dinner, and then they’ll be more or less at liberty. He never wants them around when he’s “entertaining”. It’s perfect, really. They can enjoy a movie together in the home cinema, and then, once Gozaburo has opened the third bottle of sake, probably around midnight, Seto can slip into his private office…

 

An hour later, Seto is spending more time glaring at his daifuku than eating it. It was a usual screed from Gozaburo - “The worst thing about the youth demographic isn’t their laziness, it’s their bizarre perversions, gay this and trans-whatever that” - but it was grating on him more than usual. He must be out of the habit of tuning him out.

 

Mokuba catches his eye across the table and briefly flicks his eyes up in an exasperated eyeroll and Seto has to bite his tongue to stop himself from smirking. Smirking doesn’t go down well at Gozaburo’s table.

 

Daimon insinuates himself into the room and Seto’s lip curls. The odious little man hadn’t changed at all. Mokuba used to say he wasn’t human, he was an evil gremlin.

 

“Excuse me, Mr Gozaburo, sir. Your associates have arrived.”

 

Gozaburo stands, and leaves without a glance behind. “Stay the hell out from under my feet, boys. We’ll review your campaign speeches tomorrow, Mokuba.”

 

And finally the door shuts behind him and Seto and Mokuba are alone.

 

Mokuba leans back in his chair and grabs another handful of higashi. “Phew! I thought his friends would never arrive!”

 

“I can’t stand him.” Seto rises, abandoning his half-finished dessert. “Come on, let’s go upstairs.”

 

Mokuba collects a very generous serving of all the desserts on offer into a linen napkin, and nods. “Ready! What do you want to watch?”

 

They leave the dining room by the back door and use the servants’ staircase, a habit engrained long ago. A guaranteed way to never bump into Gozaburo. Daimon rarely comes back here either. It’s dark, in the dusk light; the windows are small and the lights are widely spaced, but they don’t mind. They climb to the top floor, bickering about which movie to watch, and despite whose roof they’re under, Seto’s looking forward to an evening with Mokuba.

 

His phone buzzes and he glances at it, unthinking.

 

**_Pegasus_ **

 

**Good evening, Kaiba-boy! Thought you might like to know, there’s a little bit of drama going on at the docks tonight! Should be quite the show!!  ~ Max.**

 

Seto stares.

 

First of all, how the hell did he know? Where was he getting this information?

 

Second, could he be trusted? Would he lie? Did he know that Seto had chosen tonight as the night to target Gozaburo?

 

Third, what kind of adult man uses this many fucking exclamation marks?

 

Mokuba turns, a few steps above him, realising Seto has stopped climbing. “What’s up, big brother?”

 

“Mokuba.” Seto looks up at him, his eyes blazing and his jaw set. “I have to go.”

 

* * *

 

Time to go.

 

Yami checks his satchel one last time, then disconnects the trap on the door and lets himself out. He won’t be back here until tomorrow at the earliest.

 

The docks are busy, in the late afternoon, ships docking and casting off, dock workers bustling back and forth, cranes moving shipping containers from ship to shore and shore to ship.

 

Yami doesn’t fit in, but in a busy crowd, he doesn’t have to. He keeps his hood up and his head down, and scopes out the warehouse. He catches sight of more than a few dark-skinned men with gold jewellery and left arms held distinctively stiffly: Egyptians from the Khalfani gang, carrying concealed handguns on their left side. A few playing cards outside a dockside kombini, two smoking by the warehouse, another two strolling the quay. He avoids them carefully.

 

He positions himself in a shadowy corner near the back door of the warehouse and waits for his opportunity, lighting a cigarette and keeping vigilant. He’s never risked getting so close before. He usually waits for the hubbub to die down, for the minimum guard to be posted. But he doesn’t have time for that kind of careful play.

 

It’s obvious when the shipment arrives, around sunset. The card game suddenly ends, the cigarettes are suddenly stubbed out, the stroll suddenly becomes a purposeful stride.

 

This is it.

 

He stubs his own cigarette out on a metal container, pulls on his supple leather gloves, and takes a set of lockpicks from his pocket. Hairpins are fine for the light mechanism in handcuffs, but the heavy lock on the warehouse door needs proper tools.

 

The lock clicks, he grins, and slips inside, pulling the door closed behind him.

 

The warehouse is cool, and dark, empty of people but not of crates. Good. He hides, and waits.

 

It takes quite a long time to unload a large shipment of heroin by hand.

 

Yami watches from the shadows as the Khalfani gang members carry in crates of imported Egyptian lemons, the heroin hidden inside.

 

He angles himself near a stack of crates, and when no one’s looking, he reaches in and grabs a few lemons and stuffs them into his satchel. Seems a shame to waste _all_ of them. Crouching behind the crates, he takes out a long knife and slips it between the slats of the crates, seeking the bricks of heroin. He slashes a few, long gouges near the tops, so that not much spills out but they’re ready to disgorge their contents.

 

When he judges they’re almost finished, he gets ready, pressed against the stack of crates, a lighter and the stub of his cigarette in his hand, his satchel secure, the strap slung across his body. His heart is thumping in his chest and his awareness seems heightened; he can hear every minute noise, pick out every mote of dust in the dark warehouse. His eyes have long since adjusted to the darkness, but he can see the gang thugs squinting; the dock is well-lit, they’re having trouble adjusting back and forth between the dark and the light. So much the better for him, it makes him even harder to see in the darkness.

 

Then he hears him. Akhenaden Khalfani, old Kaddaab himself. The person he’s talking to replies, and Yami stiffens. Bakura. How the hell did he get away from the cops?

 

It doesn’t matter. Focus on the task at hand. Their voices fade as they head towards the open door and Yami takes a breath. The warehouse is empty, he can hear Akhenaden and his thugs conferring outside the door. The shipment is all accounted for.

 

Now.

 

He shoulders the stack. It tips, slowly, like an ancient tree, reluctant to be felled. He braces his boots against the concrete floor, and shoves. The crates topple, crashing to the ground. He holds his breath. Lemons spill everywhere, and the stabbed bricks burst beautifully, fine powder erupting in big clouds.

 

He turns and runs for the back door, flicking open his lighter in his hand. The door is right ahead of him, he can see the crack of light; no one has come around to lock it. He flicks the lighter to life and lights the cigarette stub in cupped hands as he moves, flings it over his shoulder, and bursts through the door at a flat run.

 

Behind him, the warehouse explodes.

 

Ahead of him, the fucking hot cop’s eyes widen in shock.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so delighted to finally introduce Yami's ~mysterious~ correspondents, Mana and Mahaad! These two are such favourites of mine, I'm really excited for them to be part of this story.
> 
> If you want detailed Author's Notes for this fic, check out my patreon: pharaohsparklefists
> 
> I love getting comments on this (and all fics!) so please let me know what you think, even if it's short and/or incoherent!


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaiba and Yami cross paths and cross wits, and with the stakes higher than they've ever been, Yami offers Kaiba a wager...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even own any animes at all, to be honest with ye.
> 
> Search history continues to deepen...

 

Yami flings himself to the side, hearing a crash behind him with a satisfaction he doesn’t have time to enjoy. He’s faster, but the cop’s legs are longer and he lunges for Yami with a ferocity Yami thinks is frankly unwarranted.

 

They overbalance in the dark alleyway, struggling, Yami twisting furiously in Kaiba’s steel grip, tumbling over one another in a desperate jumble of tight fingers and tangled limbs and hot breath, until Yami finds himself pinned on his back, Kaiba’s thighs tight on his waist, Kaiba’s long hands gripping his wrists, Kaiba’s face scant inches from his, breathing the same air laced with the dark taste of smoke. 

 

His satchel has fallen. A lemon rolls out.

 

Yami grins, feral and challenging. 

 

“Tenacious, aren’t you?” He’s a little breathless, but he manages to keep his voice even, despite his pounding heart.

 

Kaiba glares and Yami smirks back at him. It’s so easy to rile him up, Yami can’t resist. Anyway, he’s almost giddy with adrenaline and success, the warehouse is burning, he can hear the distant shouts in Arabic, and a competent police officer is finally taking this case seriously. Very seriously, from the cold fire in Kaiba’s eyes.

 

“You’re under arrest.” Unlike their previous near-miss arrests, this time, there’s no victory yet in Kaiba’s tone, he’s wary, determined, and Yami’s smirk widens to a grin. 

 

“And wipe that smug look off your face!” Kaiba adds in a bark, to no effect.

 

“Because you have me right where you want me…?” Yami arches an eyebrow suggestively. He tells himself it’s a tactic that has proven effective before, a strategy he can access and use even when he’s pinned down under the hot cop’s strong body, but he knows he’s lying to himself. He enjoys it. He wants to see the cop blush, wants to cross wits with him in flirtation, not real opposition. Wants to struggle against him just to feel that hot body against his own, wants to be overpowered and pinned securely and kissed till he’s breathless...

 

Instead of any of that, Kaiba’s eyes widen and he suddenly stands, dragging Yami up with him, as though he hadn’t realised what a compromising position he was in until Yami called attention to it. This is exactly what Yami’s  _ effective strategy _ was supposed to achieve but instead of gleeful victory, Yami feels something far too close to disappointment. He doesn’t let it stop him from kicking Kaiba’s shin and trying to twist out of his hold.

 

“Stop!” Kaiba shoves him bodily against a wall, glaring in the flickering light of the fire behind the warehouse’s high windows. “Slippery little brat!”

 

Yami huffs with laughter, caught firmly again, Kaiba keeping his arm twisted behind his body and his chest pressed to the wall. The night smells of smoke and sparks and just a hint of citrus. He glances over his shoulder. “You know that better than anyone…”

 

Kaiba growls, and Yami feels the cool bite of the handcuffs close sharply on his wrists, cuffing his hands behind him. He turns to face Kaiba, their hips a fraction of an inch apart, looking up into those icy blue eyes. 

 

“Are you a gambling man, officer?”

 

He sees the brief hesitation. Kaiba should shut him down, but he’s interested. “... What do you care, criminal?”

 

Yami grins, gazing past him to the warehouse. Part of the roof on the other side has fallen in, he can tell from the way the smoke is billowing freely into the dark sky, lit from behind by the cold brilliance of the dock lights and from below by the grasping flames.

 

“Let’s play a game.”

 

~

 

“We can play a game of chess at the station.” Kaiba snaps, dragging Yami away from the warehouse.

 

Yami has the gall to laugh. “I knew you wanted a rematch.”

 

Kaiba snarls, furious, as he heads back towards his car, only stopping briefly to snatch up Yami’s satchel, without letting go of his prisoner. Yami is handcuffed and in his grip, he’s barely got his breath back and there’s a smudge of dirt on his cheek from their fight. But his voice is cool and his posture confident. The fucking little  _ brat  _ thinks he can get away again.

 

“But that’s not the kind of game I meant.” Yami continues, and Kaiba tries very hard not to listen. “I propose we wager our respect.”

 

There’s a long pause. 

 

Kaiba drags Yami down the alley to where he parked his car. 

 

He counts to ten. 

 

He counts to ten again. 

 

He mentally recites the first page of the DCPD’s Rules and Regulations. 

 

He lists all the components of his DCPD Major Crimes Division standard issue Heckler & Koch USP semi-automatic pistol and visualises disassembling it and reassembling it in his head. 

 

They reach the car. Yami’s still watching him, the barest hint of a smile on his full lips. 

 

He counts to ten again. He only gets to six.

 

“... How do you wager respect?” The question explodes from him, not loudly, but with great intensity, like a 9 mm parabellum bullet exiting a Heckler & Koch USP semi-automatic pistol equipped with a silencer. Kaiba shakes his head to clear it.

 

Yami’s eyes gleam. “You know I’m going to try to escape you. So you’re forewarned this time. If I fail to do so within four hours, I give you my word, I’ll concede the respect you’re due, and make a full confession. But if I succeed, you’ll do me the respect of hearing me out, the next time you see me.”

 

_ Don’t be absurd. _ The words are on the tip of his tongue. They’re standing beside the car. The cloud of smoke hangs in a satisfied curl over the dock buildings.

 

“Aren’t you tempted by a full confession, officer? Unless of course, you think you can’t keep a criminal in your custody from escaping for a few short hours?” Yami purrs. 

 

It’s a blatantly, almost  _ childishly _ , simple gambit. Kaiba can see right through him. The tricksy little liar is desperate, and he’s goading Kaiba’s pride to get him to agree to his absolutely ludicrous wager. Seto Kaiba wouldn’t fall for something like that.

 

“Don’t be absurd.” Kaiba looks down his nose at him. “You haven’t the remotest hope of escaping from me this time. … I accept your ridiculous challenge.”

 

Yami’s eyes light up, and Kaiba quickly turns away to unlock the car, keeping one hand firmly on Yami’s arm. 

 

“You know, we should shake on it.”

 

“Shut the hell up.”

 

Without the benefit of a police cruiser, having come directly from the Kaiba mansion, he decides the best option is to put Yami in the front passenger seat. He can keep a closer eye on him than if he puts him in the back. Kaiba opens the door and forces Yami into the car, gripping the back of his neck to guide him in, gripping over the narrow leather collar Yami’s wearing. Yami’s pulse thrums under his fingers; for all his outward confidence, his heart is racing. 

 

Kaiba leans over to fasten the seatbelt, and suddenly shivers as he realises how close Yami’s cheek is to his, how his breath plays on Kaiba’s skin. Kaiba pulls back as though he’s been burned, but Yami just glances up at him, his expression almost innocent enough to pass for his doppelganger in the game shop. Kaiba slams the door and locks it, stalking around to the driver’s side, never taking his eyes off Yami through the windscreen.

 

Yami smirks and looks away, sitting cuffed in a car seat as though it’s a throne.

 

~

 

The sleek, shining car feels like a cage. Yami twists his wrists experimentally, but the cuffs are tight and secure. He can get out of them, but not trivially, not immediately. He weighs his options as the cop gets into the car.

 

He hasn’t given himself much time, but then, when has he ever had the luxury of time? 

 

He has three options.

 

Escape this car. Kaiba’s attention is laser-focused on him, but that will have to be divided once he’s driving. If he can get his hands free without drawing attention to it, he can wait for a slow turn, distract the cop, and roll out of the car. That has the fairly significant weakness of the potential for major injury, of course, plus he’s not sure he can unlock the car doors, unbuckle his seatbelt, and open the door fast enough.

 

Escape during the transition at the station. Transitions are always weak points. Kaiba will have to park, get out of the car, get him out of the car, walk him into a station, and complete a series of practical and administrative processes, before Yami will be locked in any kind of cell or interrogation room. However, he respects the hot cop enough to know that he will also be aware of the vulnerability of the transition. This will be when Kaiba will be at his most vigilant. And they’ll most likely be surrounded by other cops.

 

So that leaves escape from a cell. Kaiba will relax a little once Yami’s in a cell, but Yami’s never met a lock he couldn’t pick. It’s the riskiest move, but if he’s right, the only one that will safely work. It will ruin his perfectly clean record to be officially arrested, but then... one way or another, by the end of the month, “Yami Namonaki” will be no more.

 

The car pulls into an underground carpark. Yami watches with more than simple interest as Kaiba punches in a code and swipes his ID to open the large metal gate. No human guard, but the system doesn’t need one; Yami can pick out three CCTV cameras immediately, and that gate has no weak points. The only feasible way to escape this carpark would be to hide in or under one of the cars. But that wouldn’t work if they knew there was an escape in progress…

 

Kaiba parks by a door, exits the car, locks it, comes around to Yami’s door, unlocks the car again, and opens the door to let Yami out. Yami gives him a wry little smile as Kaiba’s hand immediately closes on Yami’s arm again. He was right. Kaiba knows this is the logical point to attempt an escape and is exercising extreme caution.

 

But Yami doesn’t struggle, letting Kaiba steer him through the door (another keypad, another swipe, two more cameras and what looks like an infrared sensor) and into a long corridor and up a flight of stairs to a wide, busy hallway. This is the upper basement, there are windows high on the walls. More cameras. Cops everywhere. 

 

Yami’s pride stings to be paraded through, cuffed and helpless. Kaiba’s not smiling, but his eyes are gleaming with a grim satisfaction. He has his  _ prize _ .

 

Kaiba refuses to let anyone else touch Yami, to Yami’s mild amusement. He thinks about teasing the hot cop for getting possessive, but decides to keep playing the part of the compliant prisoner. Kaiba certainly isn’t foolish enough to buy the act, but even the most careful opponent can slip up, if coaxed to lower their guard even a fraction…

 

So Kaiba alone takes Yami’s possessions and calls them out for a junior detective to account for them and box them. He takes Yami’s hooded jacket, briefly unlocking one cuff to do so, leaving him in tight leather trousers and a sleeveless shirt. The lemons in his satchel cause some confusion, and Yami just smiles innocently.

 

Kaiba alone fills out the admission forms, his left hand still tight on Yami’s arm as he does so.

 

Kaiba alone pats Yami down, his jaw tight and his eyes definitely avoiding Yami’s face as he does so. Yami bites his lip as he feels those strong, probing fingers work their way up his thighs. 

 

When Kaiba reaches his hair, sinking his hands into it to search, Yami’s breath catches very softly, and their eyes meet, the connection like a spark of static. Kaiba yanks back his hands and grabs Yami by the shoulders, shoving him roughly back into the hallway, around a corner, and into the doorway at the end. 

 

An interrogation cell. A metal table, bolted to the floor. One chair on one side, which Kaiba steers Yami into. Two on the other side. A heavy metal ring set into the table, and waiting manacles. A stark light. A “mirror”. And nothing else.

 

Yami shivers a little. The room is chilly without his jacket.

 

Kaiba unlocks one cuff, and immediately handcuffs Yami to the ring instead. He grabs Yami’s free hand and locks one of the manacles around his wrist, then locks the other around his other wrist, and only then removes the handcuffs. He’s locked them so Yami has only a few links of slack, a few scant inches between each wrist and the ring. The chain on the manacles is longer, but he obviously doesn’t trust Yami.

 

Yami smiles up at him. “Is this normal procedure, officer?”

 

“I would say you forfeited your right to normal procedure, but actually, I get to call the shots regardless of how  _ good  _ you are.” Kaiba looms over him, tall and imposing in his suit, and Yami suddenly feels very vulnerable with his bare arms and his possessions stripped from him.

 

“Now.” Kaiba leans over Yami and shoves him bodily back from the table by the shoulder, the legs of the chair scraping on the concrete floor, so his arms are stretched out in front of him and he’s forced to bow forward in the chair and to tip his head back to maintain eye contact. Kaiba smirks down at him. 

 

“Here’s  _ my  _ game. Can I get that confession before the four hours are even up?”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a tricky chapter to write. The moment at the end was one of the first things I envisioned of this AU that became this fic! I wanted to do it justice.
> 
> Extended Author's Notes are available on my patreon (pharaohsparklefists)!
> 
> Also Happy St Patrick's Day!


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaiba and Yami finally get their chess rematch...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! or very much of anything honestly.

 

 

Yami looks good like this, poised between submission and defiance, and Kaiba decides to choose not to notice this fact.

 

Yami’s lips - full and perfectly formed - are parted, and his sharp, narrow jaw is set, the delicate lines of his face describing his wary apprehension of his own defiance. His eyes, that compelling garnet hue, are submissively wide over his high, bladed cheekbones. A scuff of soot or ash mars his cheek, smudged against his rich brown skin, in sharp contrast to the cutting edge of his black eyeliner. His thick hair is as perfectly messy as ever, bangs streaked with gold framing his face.

 

But Kaiba is choosing not to notice any of that.

 

He lets go of Yami’s shoulder and steps back, taking his seat at the table opposite him. Yami shifts forward, slowly and gracefully, like a cat sizing up a larger opponent. He rests his delicate hands - bare, his gloves confiscated - on the sturdy chain keeping him shackled to the table, and raises his chin as he meets Seto’s eyes.

 

He doesn’t speak.

 

Smart brat.

 

“I’ve already outsmarted you.” Kaiba smirks as he says it. It sounds good,  _ feels  _ good. He  _ wants  _ to have already outsmarted the cunning, slippery arsonist.

 

“Is that so?” One narrow eyebrow arches and an answering smirk plays on those ridiculously perfect lips. 

 

Kaiba glares back. “You know I have. I have all the evidence I need. You were apprehended at the scene of the crime. I hold all the cards. The only decent card you have left to play is to make a full and honest confession, to minimise the amount of time you spend in prison.”

 

Yami tilts his head slightly, as though considering it. His poker face is almost flawless, but Kaiba knows him well enough now to pick out the slight flicker of fear behind his confident smirk. 

 

“I believe,” Yami says, his rich voice unruffled, “that as long as I survive this turn, I’ll draw the card I need.”

 

_ Survive  _ is a strong word, Seto thinks. Yami’s words in the alley come back to him, the first time he tried to arrest him.

 

_ Games where a loss means you’re as good as dead. _

 

Yami obviously thinks of this - arson, chase, arrest, escape - as a game. A true duel, against a worthy opponent, for high stakes. Seto doesn’t bother suppressing his grin.

 

“I’m going to take this to the Chief Prosecutor as soon as his office opens tomorrow morning,” Kaiba folds his arms, “and my case can either include your confession, along with my personal recommendation for leniency, or it can include a damning description of your multiple attempts to evade justice.”

 

Yami’s eyes widen innocently. “Oh? You don’t mind admitting that you let me get away? Three times?”

 

Kaiba’s jaw tightens and he can  _ feel  _ his blood pressure rise.

 

“Seems like a lot of failed attempts for a--”

 

“Shut up!” Kaiba barks.

 

“But I thought you wanted me to talk?” Yami’s smile is utterly wicked.

 

Kaiba closes his eyes, but for some reason, he still pictures that pert, perfect mouth in its mischievous smirk and he quickly opens them again.

 

“You might as well start talking. I can keep you here for as long as I need, you know.”

 

“I plan on escaping long before it, but I know you can only hold me initially for forty-eight hours. Unless the Chief decides I’m worth letting go early…”

 

Kaiba’s eyes widen slightly. Can the brat actually know about Bakura and Isis’s brother? It’s not impossible he could have guessed, of course. He must have known they were arrested after he  _ almost  _ was. If they showed back up on the streets 16 hours later, it would have to be because they were released. 

 

Because no one can escape from fucking DCPD headquarters. It’s patently absurd.

 

Kaiba glares. “I won’t have any trouble extending that forty-eight hours.” He reaches over the table and grabs the chain between Yami’s shackles, and yanks it, drawing a soft little gasp that brings him immense satisfaction. “I can keep you on my chain for two, three weeks if I need to. Right under my thumb. You’ll stay right here, chained in these shackles, until  _ I  _ decide you deserve a brief rest. Then I’ll personally walk you to a cell and chain you to a bunk, but not until you’re exhausted enough to ask me nicely for it.”

 

A hot pink flush spreads across Yami’s cheeks, his wide eyes locked on Seto’s … and as Seto’s gaze sinks back down to that mouth, Yami bites his lip.

 

Seto freezes, gripping the chain painfully tightly. He wants to hear that gasp again… 

 

“You want to tie me to a bed, officer…?” Yami’s eyes gleam.

 

Kaiba lets go roughly and stands abruptly.

 

“Start talking, boy.” He snaps the words, looming over Yami, who’s sitting in his narrow metal chair like it’s a throne.

 

Kaiba turns away and paces the room, full of a nervous, frustrated energy. He wants to grab Yami again but he doesn’t trust him. Or himself. He shouldn’t get too close to him, shouldn’t encourage his mockery.

 

Yami shakes his head. “Anything I tell you, you’ll twist to fit your existing so-called evidence, and try to force me to sign it later. I will tell you nothing.”

 

“ _ So-called evidence _ ? I can place you at two of the crime scenes, we confiscated your lighter--” Kaiba’s voice is rising faster than Yami’s is.

 

“It’s not illegal to own or carry a lighter.”

 

“It’s illegal to set fires with it.” 

 

“I smoke!”

 

“Ha!”

 

Kaiba finds himself leaning over the table, bare inches from Yami, his hands flat on the table either side of Yami’s shackled hands. He draws back quickly.

 

“Do you even know how many arsons you’ve committed?”

 

Yami leans back, shackled arms stretched out in front of him. He meets Kaiba’s gaze, unflinching, and doesn’t respond.

 

“Do you know how many people you’ve killed?”

 

Something flickers in Yami’s eyes and his jaw tightens; he’s clenching his teeth. Kaiba presses his advantage, producing the Ghost Arsons file and slamming it down on the table.

 

“Have you seen your crimes before you, in black and white?” 

 

In Yami’s watchful, wary silence, Kaiba spreads out copies of the first page of each individual report within the file, letting Yami see that the file is still bristling with evidence and photos but not letting him see anything but the copies he lays out.

 

He folds his arms, smug, as Yami surveys the sheets of paper. Yami’s expression is stiffly neutral, but his jaw is still tightly clenched.

 

The silence in the room stretches taut.

 

“Well?” Kaiba snaps. 

 

“That one isn’t even arson.”

 

Yami extends one hand, caught by the shackle, to gesture to one of the sheets of paper.

 

“What are you talking about?” Kaiba’s tone is aggressively dismissive, but he steps closer, skimming the first few lines. “Don’t be ridiculous. A gaseous accelerant was used.”

 

Yami shakes his head. “It’s a gas leak.”

 

Kaiba comes around Yami’s side of the table to lean over the report properly, frowning. He straightens and opens the large file, in his hands, above Yami’s eye line, to look at the supplementary reports and the crime scene photos.

 

“It can’t be a gas leak! There wasn’t a gas main connected to that building, and gas levels were measured as normal a week later.” He snaps the report, the follow up, and the largest photo down beside Yami on the table, in quick succession, like he’s laying out a good hand out in poker.

 

Yami glances over his evidence and then up at Kaiba, that infuriatingly perfect smirk back on his plump lips.

 

“Not connected.” He nods at the photo. “There’s a disused gas line below those buildings. There was probably still gas left in the pipe itself when they closed it off. This would have been, oh, ten years ago. The pipe must have finally degraded enough to let what was left in it escape. There was no continuing leak, because that pipe is disconnected from the modern system.”

 

Kaiba’s eyes narrow, his mind running through the possibility, visualising old maps of the city infrastructure.

 

“How did it alight?”

 

Yami reaches for the photo, grimacing in frustration as he’s caught again by his shackles, and taps the corner instead of picking it up. 

 

“Those buildings were built cheaply, the old-fashioned plug sockets must have let off a spark at the wrong time.”

 

“Hm.” Kaiba studies the photo, shifting closer to Yami as he does. Yami smells faintly of smoke and cinnamon, and as Kaiba reaches for the photo, his hand brushes Yami’s arm. He snatches himself back like he’s touched fire, grabbing everything up from the table. 

 

“Shut the hell up! You’re not supposed to be  _ helping _ .”

 

Yami raises his eyebrows and just smiles.

 

Kaiba shoves everything back in the file and stalks out of the room, slamming and locking the door behind him, leaving Yami shackled and alone.

 

* * *

 

Yami expected to feel relief at being left alone, but he misses the tension of Kaiba’s presence. 

 

He drops his head into his chained hands, fingers probing deeply to find his hairpins. There, two of them. He shifts them forward, so they’ll be easy to pull free, while still being hidden from the hot cop’s glaring gaze.

 

Yami raises his head and assess the “mirror” opposite him. He has no way of knowing, obviously, whether anyone is watching him through it. He’ll have to deal with that too.

 

He shivers a little in the cool air of the interrogation cell. He’s in nothing but his tight, sleeveless shirt and leather trousers and boots. He hates being cold.

 

Yami checks his options.

 

Wait, and solidify a plan, or make a break for it now. The sooner he’s out of here, the better. And who knows when Kaiba will leave the room again?

 

Before he can move, though, he hears Kaiba’s unmistakable footsteps and the key in the lock. He sighs, and straightens up, ready to face whatever aggressive, forceful techniques the cop plans to use to dominate him into submission. He might bend, but he won’t break.

 

Kaiba strides into the room, locking the door behind him, and slams something new down on the table.

 

A chess set.

 

Yami grins, immediately brightening.

 

“You owe me a rematch, brat.” Kaiba smirks down at him.

 

Yami tugs on the chain, his expression wry. “You’re not going to make me call my plays, are you?” He chances a quick, challenging grin. “You wouldn’t want me to claim any disadvantage if I were to lose, surely…”

 

Kaiba huffs. “Oh, you’ll lose.” But he comes around and unlocks the shackle on Yami’s right wrist … then abruptly handcuffs that wrist to the back leg of the chair, effectively pinning Yami’s arm by his side. 

 

“Hey!”

 

Kaiba ignores his protest, and loosens the lock on the chain attached to the other shackle, allowing Yami to use the full length, perhaps half a metre. He can reach his left hand almost to the other side of the table.

 

“This isn’t fair. I’m right-handed.” Yami tries, watching Kaiba closely.

 

“No you’re not.” Kaiba snaps, but there’s no bite to it. 

 

Yami grins, pleased. “No, I’m not.”

 

Kaiba sits opposite him, and starts setting up the board. “You’re ambidextrous. You hide it, but it’s obvious when you fight.”

 

Impressed, Yami sits back in his own chair. “You’re right. I can hide it when I spar, but in a real fight, holding back is unforgivable.” He’s stretching his arm and shaking it out, tugging against the handcuffs surreptitiously as he does. 

 

“You needn’t bother.” Kaiba smirks, glancing up from the board. “You won’t escape that way.”

 

It’s Yami’s turn to huff, he leans forward instead, adjusting his pieces. Kaiba has laid them out so he will be white and Yami will be black.

 

“You didn’t ask me whether I wanted to be black or white.”

 

“You don’t get to choose, criminal.”

 

Yami laughs, and catches the answering smile on Kaiba’s lips before the cop remembers to hide it.

 

Kaiba makes the first move, and Yami’s ready for him, moving his own pawn immediately, careful not to let the chain knock any pieces over as he moves his hand, Kaiba’s hand already on his next piece as Yami lets go. A few turns in, they pause, both frowning intently at the board.

 

Yami toys with the chain, his eyes flicking back and forth across the board. Kaiba is a strong and aggressive chess player, a powerhouse, and confident in it. And Yami relishes testing his strength.

 

Kaiba makes his move and Yami leans forward, considering his.

 

“How does a street rat like you play tournament-level chess?” Kaiba demands.

 

Yami moves his bishop and looks up at Kaiba, eyebrow raised. This cop is such an asshole. 

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“You heard me, brat.” 

 

Kaiba taps a pawn, considering, his attention on the board, while Yami openly glares at him. 

 

“You know nothing about me or my past,  _ officer _ .”

 

“It’s  _ detective _ , actually.” Kaiba throws him an irate look as he moves the pawn to capture one of Yami’s.

 

Yami responds by capturing it with his rook immediately and giving Kaiba a smug smirk.

 

“And I know everything I need to know about you.” Kaiba glares at the rook and then at Yami. “I know you’re setting these fires to draw attention to a gang smuggling brown heroin into Domino, I know you’re getting desperate, and I know you’re not escaping this cell.”

 

Kaiba moves his own rook across the board and smirks. 

 

“Check.”

 

Yami’s eyes widen and he feels a shiver go down his spine as he realises that Kaiba does know what his intent with the fires is. This is what he planned for, what he wanted, but he didn’t expect to be chained to a table playing chess against the investigating detective when it happened. He tugs fitfully against the handcuff keeping him locked to the chair.

 

“How much do you know about the gang?” he asks, keeping his voice steady and cool with a supreme effort. His heart is pounding. He uses his queen to capture the offending rook and meets Kaiba’s eyes.

 

“I don’t share information about ongoing criminal investigations with suspects.” Kaiba delivers the line in his most clipped, arrogant professional voice and Yami suppresses the urge to roll his eyes. Kaiba makes his move.

 

“Fine,” says Yami. “Check.”

 

“Tell me where you learned to play chess.” Kaiba’s leaning forward in his chair as he chooses his next move, focused and determined, and Yami has to admit it looks good on him. 

 

Yami grins. “Let’s wager it on the game. Whoever loses must tell the other where and how they learned to play chess.” 

 

“Deal.”

 

“Check.”

 

“Brat!”

 

They’re both leaning forward now, intent on the board. Yami suspects Kaiba intended to use the chat over the game to try to loosen Yami’s tongue, but he’s abandoned that pretense now, entirely focused on the game. The air practically crackles between them, and Kaiba’s so absorbed he forgets to flinch away when their hands brush, crossing the board as fast as thought. Yami relishes it, this intensity, this rivalry. He wants it to last. 

 

But Yami sweeps his queen across the board, setting his final play in motion, and Kaiba growls.

 

“You’ve won.” Kaiba is indignant, his blue eyes burning.

 

“I know.”

 

They play through the last few moves anyway. Yami appreciates that, Kaiba giving his win his full attention and respect.

 

Then Kaiba stands, tossing the pieces back inside the chess board and locking it closed with a neat snap. Yami watches, wetting his lips, pleased by his victory but wary of the storm on Kaiba’s face.

 

Kaiba turns for the door.

 

“Your forfeit!” Yami calls. “You’re supposed to tell me where you learned to play.”

 

Kaiba doesn’t turn around. “And I will. I’ll be back in ten minutes. I’ll tell you where I learned to play. And then I’ll drag your fucking confession out of you.”

 

The door slams behind him.

 

Yami sighs. He would have liked to have gotten his answer. But when Kaiba gets back, Yami intends to be long gone.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extended Author's Notes are available on my patreon: pharaohsparklefists
> 
> I know almost nothing about chess so, y'know... if there's anything really egregious in there, let me know!
> 
> In fact, if there's anything at all you noticed or questioned or liked or appreciated, please let me know in the comments, I absolutely love reading them and will reply to all of them!


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaiba has Yami cuffed to a table in a locked interrogation room. Or does he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anything, I own fewer anime than previously.

 

 

Yami slams his head down on the table, stopping half a centimetre above the surface but ramming his knee up into the table in the same instant. To anyone watching, it would look and sound like he knocked his skull hard against the metal surface.

 

Then he pauses, head resting on the table, eyes half-open, hands limp in his bonds.

 

He keeps his breathing long and slow. And counts his heartbeats.

 

...

 

Fifty-seven.

 

Fifty-eight.

 

Fifty-nine.

 

Sixty.

 

Approximately one minute. Much too long to leave an apparently-unconscious prisoner. There’s no one watching through the one-way mirror.... Or they don’t mind being fired. Either way, he’ll take his chances.

 

Yami shifts his head closer to his shackled hand and pulls the two hairpins out. He takes one between his teeth, sits up, and turns his head to drop it into his waiting right hand. It takes less than ten seconds for him to pick the lock on the handcuffs. He raises his hand, shaking it out, careful not to drop the hairpin, now straightened out and with a little crook at one end.

 

The heavy metal shackle on his left wrist poses more of a challenge. He carefully straightens and inserts the other hairpin and tests it. The mechanism is stiff, the bolt almost too heavy for the delicate hairpin to move. He keeps his breathing slow, closing his eyes to visualise the interior of the lock, prying with the end of the hairpin. There. He slides the other hairpin in as well, and twists. Just a little more....

 

It sticks....

 

One hairpin bends alarmingly....

 

He presses, firmly... steady pressure....

 

It suddenly gives, the spring jumping the cuff open right as the hairpin snaps catastrophically, sticking deep in the lock. Yami yanks his left hand clear, standing clean up from the table. That was close.

 

Yami snatches up his surviving hairpin and goes to the door. He carefully slides his straight hairpin in. Good, not too deep. He takes it out and snaps it clean in half, then quickly picks the lock. He’s worried the interrogation room will have an old-fashioned bolt too, but if it does, Kaiba didn’t close it.

 

He opens the door confidently but quietly and glances outside. The immediate corridor is empty, but the corridor it connects to is busy, he can hear voices and see figures passing to and fro.

 

He briefly closes his eyes, picturing the route Kaiba brought him.

 

Then he leaves the room, closing it neatly behind him, pocketing his hairpin pieces. He pulls a thread loose from the hem of his shirt and uses it to tie back his hair, wrapping it around and around as he walks confidently towards the corridor.

 

Listening, he chooses a quiet moment and turns out onto the main corridor.

 

Don’t change colour to match the walls; look like you belong and the walls will change colour to match you.

 

Yami glances up to a presiding CCTV camera and winks.

 

He estimates he has about fifteen seconds before someone either recognises him or notices he has no badge. Luckily there are plenty of people in plainclothes on this corridor, and his dark shirt and trousers don’t stand out. Unluckily, his dark skin does. Domino has had an influx of immigrants, but it seems very obvious they’re not being hired as police officers or police administrators. Malik’s unexpected sister is the first cop of African ancestry he can remember seeing...

 

“Hey, you!”

 

Yami grabs the handle of the men’s bathroom and disappears inside as fast as he can manage.

 

Bathrooms aren’t locked, not like offices and record rooms. And bathrooms need to be kept well-ventilated, either by windows or ... there! A grill on the wall, near the ceiling.

 

Yami enters the cubicle closest to the vent and locks it, quickly kicking his boots off and leaving them standing upright on the ground, hip-width apart. He leaves his socks in his boots. Barefoot, he jumps and grabs the top of the cubicle partition, hoisting himself up and bracing himself on top of the locked door. It only takes a few seconds to dislodge the grill, thankful that it isn’t dusty, and another few seconds to disappear inside the vent, pulling the grill back into place. Right as he lets go of it, his dark fingers vanishing from sight, the door to the bathroom bursts open, two officers appearing.

 

“If you break down this door or come near me I’m going to cut myself!” Yami cries, leaning close to the grill to project his voice out. “And I refuse to say another word until you get Detective Ishtar to talk to me!”

 

Then he crawls quietly backwards from the grill, catching a glimpse of one officer turning to shout something into the corridor and the other approaching halfway to the locked cubicle cautiously, ducking down to look through the narrow gap between the floor and the door.

 

“Sounds like a young male. He’s wearing leather studded boots, Sato.”

 

Yami grins to himself as he slowly and silently makes his escape. It’s not a ruse that will last long. If they’re very cautious, stay well back, and actually go to get Detective Ishtar, he might have bought maybe ten or fifteen minutes before they check the grill and find it loose. Upwards of an hour if she’s not on duty at the moment. But they’re likely to figure out their potential self-harmer doesn’t exist before then, when it becomes clear that “he” breathes perfectly silently and never moves his feet at all. And if they open the cubicle or look over the partition...

 

He crawls as quietly as possible along the vent, which means he has to go more slowly than he’d like.

 

The hot cop must have returned to find him gone by now. Yami’s grin widens as he imagines the look on his face when he opens the door to the empty cell.

 

The two officers in the bathroom have probably figured it out too. Or soon will, especially if Kaiba gets involved personally. Yami indulges himself in picturing the hot cop dramatically kicking down the door of the cubicle and finding nothing but his boots. He chuckles to himself.

 

Either way, the alarm will be raised. Very soon.

 

And this place will close like a trap.

 

The central vent has another grill over it, but he works it loose without making too much noise. Then he climbs up, bracing himself on either side of the vent and working his way up, bare hands and feet pressing for purchase on the raw metal.

 

He thinks he can hear a commotion, echoing softly through the vents from somewhere else in the building.

 

He sets his jaw and keeps going.

 

There’s a heavy cover over the shaft opening. He braces his bare feet on the cool metal of the shaft and shoves. For a long, terrifying moment it seems like it won’t move, and then it suddenly lifts and slides away with a clatter.

 

A loud clatter.

 

Yami spills out of the vent and runs for the edge of the roof in the half-light of the city night, immediately orienting himself towards the back of the building.

 

A single squat jutting tower against the black clouds. With a door.

 

A tall, decorative stone ridge enclosing the roof.

 

A fire escape down the side of the building.

 

The tower door is where they’ll come from. He angles his sprint to put himself out of direct line of sight of the door. That’ll buy him three or four seconds. They’ll check the fire escape first. But it’s the only viable route to the ground.

 

Yami vaults the stone ridge and drops.

 

His fingers grip the cool granite and he hugs close the building, clinging to the stone scrollwork, tucking his narrow body in under the decorative ridge, wedging his bare toes into tiny crevices. Below him, there’s a long drop, a ledge, another long drop, and presumably the ground. He doesn’t look down. He closes his eyes. He takes a long, deep breath.

 

The door above bursts open. Light spills out above him. A rooftop light. And torches.

 

“Check the fire escape!”

 

“The cover on the vent is off!”

 

“Where is he?”

 

“Spread out!”

 

“Fire escape is clear!”

 

Yami breathes slowly. Deliberately. Every muscle in his body is tight. His fingers feel frozen to the stonework. A bead of sweat trickles down his temple, but he’s cold. He hates the cold. He wants his jacket.

 

The heavy tread of boots crossing the roof. Right past him. The beams of the torches cut the night sky like ribbons. The closest searching officer is less than an arm span from his ridiculous hiding place. He imagines them peering over the stone ridge. Wondering if he jumped or fell or made the fire escape. Wondering if his body is down there, wrapped in its shroud of darkness.

 

The crackle of a radio.

 

“Roof’s clear, Sir.”

 

The crackle sounds angry.

 

“Double checked already, Sir.”

 

The crackle is definitely furious.

 

“Yes, Sir.”

 

The tramping boots converge. Yami thinks there’s four of them.

 

“You two, stay here. Do another circuit first. Radio in anything. And then check the cover for prints.”

 

“Sir!”

 

Yami sighs. Quietly.

 

The door opens and closes. Two pairs of boots resume their tramping. Two torch beams criss-cross over his head.

 

The wind blows.

 

Yami is really fucking cold. He’s getting worried he won’t be able to move from his spot. Frozen in place, like a strange and defiant gargoyle. Without a water spout.

 

As soon as the boots pass his hiding place, he moves, clinging to the decorative stonework like a lizard, crawling his way slowly towards the fire escape. His arms tremble but he ignores them, focused on his goal.

 

“Come here, I need light. Doubt there’s even any useful prints on this thing. He’s obviously not up here, it probably blew off. But orders are orders.”

 

“Whatever, just hurry up and do it.”

 

Whispering a fervid prayer to the night wind that they’re not looking this way and the rooftop light doesn’t reach this far, Yami swings himself back onto the roof, ducks, and sprints - barefoot, silent - for the fire escape, without looking back. His shoulders are braced for the shouts lobbed against his back, but he makes the step. He sacrifices speed for silence, easing himself down the metal stairs, as quietly as he can. Once his head is below the level of the roof, he lets himself breathe.

 

Down below, he can see groups of officers patrolling the perimeter, pairs at the entrances and exits, the floodlights bathing the building in light, the torches bobbing in the darker corners.

 

He draws back into a shadowed corner and watches. Times them. Waits. A patrol passes.

 

 _Run_.

 

Down the fire escape as fast as he can, and into the shadows between the building and a generator. Waits. A senior detective stalks past, trailed by another patrol group.

 

 _Run_.

 

Around the corner to the front of the building, and behind the grand DCPD sign. Waits.

 

A plainclothes officer (hipster clothes, cop boots) stops his motorcycle and dismounts, turning to call to the nearest patrol.

 

 _Run_.

 

Yami’s on the motorcycle and has it started before the plainclothes officer can even turn around.

 

 _Go_.

 

He flies off into the city’s night, away from the floodlights and the torches and the gleaming windows, a streak of darkness on a stolen motorbike, his laughter whipped from his mouth by the rushing wind as he wins his freedom.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once I got him out of the room, I was like ... there's actually a LOT more steps to escaping... The rest of the plan literally consisted of "winks at camera on the way out". 
> 
> Extended Author's Notes available on patreon.com/pharaohsparklefists!
> 
> I am continually delighted by every comment, from the longest critical analysis of the themes to the simplest "aajjkjsakhs" and I reply to all of them!

**Author's Note:**

> Ideas? Questions? Feedback? Leave a review, or message pharaohsparklefists on Tumblr!


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